To Have Someone Understand
by fringeperson
Summary: A young woman dreamed of adventure, of a life outside the social norms for a woman of her position. A gypsy longed for freedom from persecution, for a little kindness from the people around him. One day, on the streets of Paris, they met. Don't own. Clopelle, and a couple of others mentioned.
1. Chapter 1

Belle smiled to herself as she left the house that morning. It was the sixth of January, and all around people were making ready for the festival – and getting in what work needed to be done in the morning so that the afternoon could be free to celebrate in. For herself, since her mother had died, she had taken over the household duties: she cooked, cleaned, tended the horse and did the shopping that needed to be done with the money that her father made from _his_ shop. He was a carpenter by trade, but an inventor by passion.

Belle walked along, list of things that had to be done in one hand, and basket hanging from the other. A common enough sight on the streets of Paris, save the list. Few and far between were the people who could read _and_ write, but Belle's mother had been raised in a nunnery, and when she married rather than taking vows, she had determined that _her_ child would know the wonders of literature as well. Reading was Belle's passion. It allowed her to escape to far off places and have grand adventures, while still being able to assist her father when he needed her.

A voice drifted down the quiet street as Belle completed her day's shopping, and she looked up to see where it was coming from. The voice was refined, lilting as it sung, and went from gentle high notes to strong, deeper ones with such feeling...

She smiled to herself when she finally spotted the source. A brightly coloured cart with a brightly coloured man, and a small flock of children gathered around.

"And some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells, the bells of Notre Dame. Listen, they are beautiful, no? So many colours of sound, so many changing moods... Because you know, they _don't_ ring all by themselves," the brightly coloured man informed the children in his audience.

"They _don't_?" asked a shocked puppet that was a miniature of the brightly coloured man, but in a high, squeaky voice.

"No, you silly boy," the puppeteer scolded. "Up there, high, high in the dark bell tower, lives the mysterious bell ringer. Who is this creature?"

"Who?" the puppet popped up to ask.

"What is he?"

"What?"  
"How did he come to be there?"

"How?"

"Hush!" the puppeteer scolded, and cracked a stick over the puppet's head.

"Ow!" the puppet complained, and rubbed his poor little head.

Belle stifled a giggle, easily hidden beneath the laughter of the children who were gathered around the showman's cart. He was really very good.

"Clopin will tell you," the puppeteer said, a hand on his chest as he leant out to the children, drawing their attention further in as he did. "It is the tale of a man... and a _monster_..." he began.

Belle watched in silent fascination as the brightly coloured man, the puppeteer, this _Clopin_, told the story of the bell ringer of Notre Dame with his puppets, with gestures and voice and acting so well...

"So here is a riddle to guess, if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame," he finished in that once more lilting voice that he had begun with. "Who is the monster and who is the man? Sing the bells of Notre Dame."

And with that last high note, the curtain closed over the puppet theatre. The children clapped, which drew the brightly coloured puppeteer out of his cart to bow to them before ushering them all off to their parents once more.

"Go on, mes enfents, you must return to your families and make ready for the festival this afternoon," he said happily.

Belle waited, a smile on her face, until the last of the children were gone and the man was returning to his cart.

"You have a gift for story-telling," she complimented him.

The man bowed from the waist. "Merci, Mademoiselle," he answered.

Belle reached into her money pouch and drew out a few coins. "One is for your little puppet, to buy a hat that will better protect him from your stick," she joked as she offered the gold and silver coins.

Clopin stared, jaw hanging slightly, at the amount of money being offered to him. "Mademoiselle," he said softly as he looked from the money to her face in astonishment. "I..."

Belle smiled. "Do _not_ tell me that you cannot accept it," she said with gentle, teasing sternness. Clopin closed his mouth, and it twitched up in a vaguely melancholy smile – an expression that looked _well_ out of place with all of his bright colours. Without looking, he reached into his cart and brought out a small drawstring bag, faded purple and patched with brown. He opened the bag, and blushed when a moth flew out.

Belle bit down on her bottom lip so that she would not laugh, and dropped the coins in.

"Merci, Mademoiselle," he said softly as he put the bag back into his cart.

"Will you tell me more of the story?" Belle asked hopefully. "The details that did not fit into the rhyme?"

Clopin blinked in surprise. "What would you like to know?" he asked.

"Monsieur," Belle said softly, "so few people know even as much as you told this morning of the bell ringer." She bit her lip as she considered how to ask her question. "Were you there?"

"I was," Clopin answered sadly after a moment. "I... You will not speak of this, I hope?" he asked before he continued, and waved for her to join him on the steps of his cart where their conversation would be more hidden.

"I shall not breathe a word, if you wish," Belle promised solemnly as she sat beside him.

"Merci," he thanked her, then continued with the story. "My mother had found the child, abandoned in the snow for his appearance, and took pity on him. My father would not refuse her... and then he was captured as soon as he were in Paris. He and my uncle both. I ran with my mother, and when we reached the doors of Notre Dame, and Frollo came upon us... she bid me hide in the shadows while she would continue to run. She would not leave the babe though, he had suffered the cold long enough, and I could give him no warmth then... I was beginning to turn blue myself, Mademoiselle," he explained with a weak smile.

Belle nodded her understanding.

"The baby had cost me my mother. I would not have minded having a younger brother, even one who had been abandoned for his appearance, but I was also a child, and for a moment hatred burned in me at _him_ for taking my mother from me, as surely as Frollo had, and so I did not speak up for him at the time," Clopin finished, and there was a look of distant regret in his eyes as he turned them to the towering church that was not too far distant.

Belle lay a hand on his shoulder in an offering of comfort. "Do not be melancholy for what cannot be changed Monsieur," she implored gently. She considered his face, though he wore a mask over half of it. "A frown does not suit you as well as a smile does," she said.

Clopin's answering smile was a bit lopsided, but it was a smile all the same. "And today is the Feast of Fools," he added. He rose to his feet then and offered Belle his hand to help her onto her own feet once more.

Belle smiled back and accepted the hand. "Oui," she agreed. "May I look for you there?" she asked.

Clopin laughed. "Mademoiselle, if you do not see me, I shall be surprised," he answered, his gaiety returned.

Belle laughed as well, and curtseyed to the colourful man. "Then I shall look forward to seeing you there," she said with a smile, and turned to continue back to her home and her father.

"Mademoiselle," Clopin called after her before she had taken but a few steps. "Forgive me, but I did not ask your name."

Belle smiled. "Belle Leburinrusée," she answered.

Clopin smiled back. "I am Clopin Trouillefou," he returned, with a flourishing bow.

Belle nodded her head in acceptance of the name, gave him one last smile, and continued on her way.

"Belle," Clopin contemplated softly to himself. "It suits her," he decided as he lifted the handles of his cart and started to tow it towards the square in front of Notre Dame – where the preparations for the Feast of Fools were already well under way.

~oOo~

Belle laughed with delight when she returned to her father's shop, above which she and her father had rooms, with their kitchen behind. There were a pair of gypsies there – a man and a woman – and she danced and played her tambourine while he played his flute. But more entertaining than that was the young goat with a gold hoop through one ear that pranced around the tattered hat that people had been dropping coins into.

"Papa!" Belle called into the shop. "Come and see the gypsies!"

"What's this Belle?" her father, a kind, if slightly portly and mildly eccentric man by the name of Maurice answered as he left his varnishing to come to the door.

"They have a dancing _goat_, Papa," Belle declared happily.

Maurice chuckled. "Anybody who can teach a young goat to dance deserves a few coins," he declared. "You put away your basket, and I'll fetch a couple of francs."

Belle embraced her father briefly, and headed out the back to the kitchen. She returned to the door quickly, wanting to take joy in the sight of the dancing goat and the cheerful music, and took a crumpled piece of paper to the face.

"You leave town for a couple of decades and they _change_ everything," a blonde man with a slight beard complained to his horse.

Belle raised a curious eyebrow and un-wadded the paper that she had caught. It was an _old_ map of Paris. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Monsieur," she said, and stepped up to him. "Where are you trying to find?" she asked.

"The Palace of Justice," the man answered a little unhappily.

Belle bit off laughter, for it would have been at his expense, and that would not be kind. "Straight down _that_ road," she said, pointing to road that continued under an arch just past where the gypsies were performing.

"Ah, merci, Mademoiselle," the man said, and a slight blush rose to his cheeks. With an embarrassed cough he excused himself to continue on his way, and dropped a few coins in the tattered old hat the goat was dancing around as he passed them.

As the blonde man continued under the arch into the next street, a little boy appeared atop it and whistled shrilly – a warning, if the reactions of the gypsies was anything to go by.

The man with the flute disappeared, the woman started to run as well, but turned back when the goat – which had grabbed the hat in his teeth – bleated. A good portion of the coins had fallen from the hat across the street.

Belle then spotted the two soldiers approaching. The attitude held by Frollo – who was now no mere judge, but a minister of the city – and his soldiers towards the gypsies was well known, and proven quickly when the two soldiers immediately focused their ire on the gypsy woman.

"Alright, _gypsy_, where'd you get the money?" one demanded as he tugged on the hat. He had a _very_ impressive moustache.

"For your information, I _earned_ it," the woman answered back angrily, holding tight to the purple cloth hat that held less coins than it had before.

Belle surreptitiously moved to collect the coins that the gypsy woman hadn't gotten to yet – but quickly.

"Gypsies don't _earn_ money," the first soldier insisted haughtily, as though he knew everything.

"They _steal_ it," added the second, as _he_ made a grab for the gypsy's coins.

"You'd know a _lot_ about stealing," she answered fiercely.

"Troublemaker, eh?" the first soldier asked, and sounded pleased by the idea.

"Please!" Belle interjected frantically, latching a hand onto the arm of one of the soldiers. "Please, a boy just stole my basket!"

The soldiers were immediately at her disposal.

"What did the boy look like Mademoiselle?" asked the first soldier.

"About this high," Belle answered frantically as her hand hovered about the height of her waist, but with a note of worry in her tone, as though she could not be sure. "And blonde hair," she added, more sure of that (false) detail.

"He went that way," her father joined in, and pointed down the street towards the gates of Paris.

"Oh please sirs, my basket!" Belle wailed.

"Certainly Mademoiselle!" the soldiers answered, and hurried off.

Belle smiled as she watched them go, and turned to the gypsy woman.

"You..."

"Lied," Belle finished. "But don't tell them!" she added cheekily.

The gypsy turned her head on the side in confusion.

"This is yours, I believe?" Belle asked, and held out the coins that she'd picked up.

"Thank you," the gypsy woman said. "But... why?"

"Because you taught a young goat to dance," Maurice answered happily, and gave her the coins he had not yet dropped into her hat when the soldiers had come.

"And maybe I'm just getting into the spirit of the Feast of Fools a little early," Belle added with a smile and a wink. "Now, I really must go and wait for the soldiers to return and apologise for not being able to catch the thief," Belle said with a polite nod and went to stand by the door of her father's shop.

"The festival!" the gypsy woman gasped, and hurried off down the streets towards the square.

"Think she'll be performing this afternoon?" Maurice asked his daughter.

Belle smiled and rested her cheek a moment on top of her father's balding head (she had gotten her height, indeed _all_ of her looks, from her mother). "You just want to see the goat dance some more," she teased fondly.

Maurice chuckled. "Ah, my daughter knows me so well," he answered with amusement before he went back into his shop. He had work to do before the festival after all.

Belle hesitated to follow him – she _did_ want to wait for the soldiers to return with the bad news after all – but as soon as it was done with, she headed in as well.

~oOo~

"Papa," Belle said softly as they closed up the shop.

"Yes Belle?"

"Do you _really_ want to leave Paris?" she asked. "Again?" she added pointedly.

Maurice froze where he stood, then sagged with a sigh and turned to his daughter. "Belle," he said gently. "Having the shop here in Paris has been good to us, I know. The business is good, and our humble lives allow us to give to those in greater need than us, and to save our coin for a day when it is _us_ who will need it... but as much as I love my work, I just..." Maurice sighed again tiredly. "And even with what happened last time..."

The last time they'd moved to a little town... Well, she'd gotten to fall in love with a _cursed prince_, which had been... _exciting_... right up until Gaston had shoved a knife into his side and even though the curse was lifted the mortal wound had remained. At least _that_ vile man had fallen to his death as well, and Mrs Potts had been very understanding about Belle's sudden, burning _need_ to _not be there_, where the halls were all filled with conflicting emotions. Cogsworth had presented her with a deed to the castle before she left them. Apparently the whole staff had talked it over, and as thanks to her for breaking the curse on them all, the castle and all that was in it would be hers. They would keep the place clean for her if she ever desired to return. As far as the castle was concerned, she was their new princess, their mistress, even if she would not live there.

"I know Papa," Belle said softly. "You want the leisure to invent."

"The idea of leaving behind lively Paris for a provincial town did not appeal to you before," Maurice noted sagely with a speculative nod. "And after what happened last time, I will not blame you if you wish to stay this time -"

"I'm not going to leave _you_ Papa," Belle said firmly. "Not if I don't have to. If I am not with you, then who will take care of you?" she asked rhetorically. "Certainly no one _there_," she added pointedly.

After Maurice was almost sent to the asylum as part of a threat to get Belle to marry Gaston, and the horrible events that had spiralled out from that, no, no one there would care for him. The trouble was, to Belle's thinking, that the little town was full of little people. Not physically, as such, though there were more people of a height with her father than with herself, but... small minded. Such a thing as _thinking_ was a pass-time actively _discouraged_ by almost the entire town. In Paris, weakness in the ability to read and write did not stop people from learning, or from appreciating the written word, and there were clerks who could be employed for a truly small sum to read and write letters _for_ those who lacked the ability themselves.

Maurice considered his daughter. "I may be getting to be an old man," he said, "but I'm sure I could take care of myself if you wished to remain."

Belle bit her lip in nervous thought. The people there would be unkind to her father, but there _was_ the castle and all the staff there...

Maurice took his daughter's hands gently in his own. "Make no decision today," he ordered her tenderly. "Today is the Feast of Fools. Time to be frivolous and ridiculous."

Belle smiled at her father and nodded in acceptance.

Maurice nodded firmly, and finished locking up, then escorted his daughter to the square before Notre Dame.


	2. Chapter 2

"Come one, come all!" chanted the solemnly robed procession with their furled banners as they marched through the streets. "Leave your looms and milking stools, coop the hens and pen the mules. Come one, come all! Close the churches and the schools, it's the day for breaking rules."

The procession stepped into the square at last, the crowds of Parisians gathered around, but leaving enough space for the marchers to continue forward unhindered.

A figure swung in on a bannered rope, and landed there, in the middle of everything. Poor chap immediately started running for the crowd. Clearly an accidental arrival. He'd probably lost his balance while making sure they were secured, and gone flying.

But the marchers were chanting still. "Come and join the feast of -"

"Fools!" Clopin cried out as he appeared from beneath the robe of the central, leading figure of the parade.

The banners all were released, showing off bright colours in contrast with the solemn black robes of the people holding them up, but then they too all took their robes and turned them inside out, showing off bright colours hidden within.

Belle laughed happily and applauded the spectacle. Indeed, if she had _not_ seen Clopin at the Feast of Fools, it would have been a surprising thing indeed.

Clopin, somehow, spotted her among those at the forefront of the crowd as well, and as he sang out in joyous proclamation of the holiday – as was his duty as the Lord of Misrule, the _Prince des Sots_, the, ahem, "_officer_" in charge of the Feast – he drew her out to dance with him.

"Once a year, we throw a party here in town. Once a year, we turn all Paris upside-down. Every man's a king and every king's a clown. Once again, it's Topsy Turvy Day!"

Belle laughed in delight as Clopin spun her around and applauded the clever individual (likely a gypsy) who had made a costume so that he looked like a king when walking on his hands, and a jester with shoes _on_ his hands when he walked on his feet.

"It's the day the _devil in us_ gets released," Clopin said, and turned Belle carefully to point to a figure hiding behind some devilish balloons. "It's the day we mock the prig and shock the priest..." he continued. "Everything is Topsy Turvy at the Feast of Fools!"

And while the crowd cheered, Belle whispered a question in Clopin's ear.

"That's him, isn't it?" she asked swiftly and softly.

Clopin nodded, but he could not be distracted from his role. At that moment, he was a more important public figure than Frollo himself, and had to call out over the crowds: "Everything is upsy-daisy!" Which incited another chant from the gathered masses.

"I'll keep him safe if you like," Belle offered.

Clopin smiled, but shook his head. "Everyone is acting crazy!" he announced as he spun her around in his arms again. "Dross is gold and weeds are a bouquet! That's the way on Topsy Turvy Day!"

While the crowd chanted the cry of the day, Clopin dipped Belle low and whispered in _her_ ear. "It shouldn't be needed," he told her. "But merci, chérie."

Belle giggled as he rose, and drew her back up onto her feet again.

"Beat the drums and blow the trumpets!" he ordered the crowd happily as he danced with Belle through the crowds. "Join the bums and thieves and strumpets streaming in from Chartres to Calais. Scurvy knaves are extra scurvy on the sixth of January, all because it's -"

"Topsy Turvy Day!" Belle joined in the cry with Clopin, all the other gypsies in the square, and her fellow Parisians gathered all around them.

"Come one, come all!" Clopin declared loudly as he left Belle at last to grab hold of another's arm – the arm of the bell ringer he had pointed out to Belle not moments before. "Hurry, hurry, here's your chance," he declared happily. "See the mystery and _romance_," he added with a wink at Belle, before he leapt over the bell ringer and onto the stage. "Come one, come all!" he called loudly again. "See the finest girl in France make an entrance to entrance! Dance, la Esmeralda, _dance_!" he cried, making quite an impressive high note before he threw down... _something_ that created a cloud of coloured smoke, and then Clopin was replaced by...

Belle blinked, and then laughed in delighted surprise. It was the same gypsy girl who had been dancing with her goat across from her father's shop earlier that day. Oh yes, her being arrested by the soldiers for 'stealing' would have _definitely_ upset the festival. Belle was glad she'd lied to the guards about the theft of her basket. She'd pray forgiveness for the lie, but later.

"So Esmeralda is her name," Belle mused to herself as she watched the show from beside the bell ringer, poorly disguised in only a cape and hood. His shape was really rather singular.

"You know her?" the boy asked.

Belle smiled at him. "She was dancing outside my father's shop earlier," she answered.

"So it was _you_," Clopin said, reappearing at Belle's side. "She said that a girl and her father had saved her from the soldiers earlier. You want to be careful that Frollo does not learn of such things," he warned.

Belle smirked a little. "And who would tell him?" she asked slyly. "No one in the street saw, and here now? This is the Feast of Fools. No one cares for such distinctions _now_."

"Oh! Look at that, why, you make a liar of me Mademoiselle," he scolded with a smile. "I said on the stage that Esmeralda was the finest girl in France, and not seconds later you prove me wrong!" he declared and pressed a hand to his chest as though pained.

Quasimodo chuckled softly at the exchange, torn between watching Clopin and Belle, and watching Esmeralda on the stage. The conflict did not last long at least, for Clopin had to return to the stage to bow with Esmeralda as coins were thrown up to them.

"Here it is: the moment you've been waiting for," he announced once the coins stopped coming.

Belle noticed that Quasimodo looked confused. His face may have been strange, but it was still easy enough to read.

"Here it is! You know exactly what's in store," he called with a sly wink to the crowds. "Now's the time we laugh until our sides get sore!" he proclaimed, miming the act of laughing from his stomach so much that it hurt. "Now's the time we crown the _King of Fools_! Why?" he enquired of the crowd.

"Topsy Turvy!" they answered happily, Belle with them, and she smiled at Quasimodo in encouragement.

"Ugly folks, forget your shyness!" Clopin cried out.

"Topsy Turvy!" the crowd cried back, and Quasimodo joined in this time, with a shy smile at Belle as he did so.

"You could soon be called 'your highness'!" Clopin continued as he pulled men in great masks up onto the stage.

Belle held Quasimodo back when he seemed interested in going up as well.

He looked at her in surprise.

"Monsieur," she said softly, "you are the bell ringer of Notre Dame, aren't you?" she asked.

Quasimodo's eyes got as wide as they could in his face.

"Minister Frollo is right there," Belle said with a gesture to where the stern judge sat, presiding over the festival with an air of disapproval. "Enjoy this day, but do nothing to draw his gaze," she cautioned gently, and lay a caring arm over the boy's misshapen back. "He is well known to not be a _tolerant_ man."

"Thank you," Quasimodo gulped softly, stunned, shocked, and a little frightened.

When Esmeralda came to tantalise another she believed to be wearing a mask up onto the stage, Belle intervened.

"Oh no," she said, an arm draped still over Quasimodo's back. "He is _far_ too handsome beneath his mask to be King of Fools. Minister Frollo, on the other hand," Belle joked.

Esmerelda laughed, but winked, nodded, and danced off to tease up another contestant.

"Put your foulest features on display, for the face that's _ugliest_ will be the King of Fools!" Clopin cried out, and invited Esmeralda to rip off the first mask in the line-up of people willing to try for the dubious title.

"Papa!" Belle cried in surprise when Esmeralda pulled a (borrowed or _very_ recently bought, since Maurice hadn't been wearing a mask when they'd left the house) bull-head off Maurice.

He pinched his lips together, pulled them out and stuck out his tongue, and rolled his eyes up while also tugging down his lower eyelids.

The crowd cheered, and Belle couldn't help but laugh – that face _always_ made her laugh – and her father had been crowned King of Fools. When he released his grip on his face, it returned to its usual, kind and affable expression as he smiled in delight at the crowning.

"I still say Minister Frollo should have been crowned," Belle quipped to Quasimodo, a smile on her face, "since he has an ugly soul to go with that sneer of his, but Papa's just so happy, I couldn't tell _him_ that."

"Why -?" Quasimodo tried to ask, confused.

Belle looked curiously down at the boy, silently urging him to ask his whole question.

"Why do you say that of my master?" Quasimodo asked. "He's been so good to me..."

Belle lay a gentle hand on Quasimodo's back, and guided him over to one of the tables where feasting and drinking was going on.

"People are cruel," she said, "and they are shallow, and so few look beyond the surfaces they see. He is guilty too," she explained softly. "What has he told you of the people of Paris? How each of these people would react if they knew that this," she said as she lightly stroked Quasimodo's cheek with one hand, "was _not_ a mask, but your real face?"

"I am deformed," Quasimodo said softly, "and I am ugly. I know that these are crimes for which the world shows little pity. He is my one defender. If they knew, they would revile me as a monster. If they knew, then they would hate and scorn and jeer. I am a monster..."

"No," Belle cut off sternly, a delicate hand on Quasimodo's well-muscled forearm. "You are _not_ a monster. You are a man, unfortunate of face and form, but a _man_. People would stare, and they might fear, but they _can_ learn to see past such things, because there is _more_ to you than what people see with their eyes."

"There you are Mademoiselle! I was missing you," Clopin declared as he slid down onto the bench beside Belle. "And my friend, you as well! I was surprised you did not come onto the stage."

"Frollo would have seen me," Quasimodo answered.

Clopin pulled a face beneath his mask. "Ah, yes, that _would_ have been a risk, I suppose," he conceded. "Belle, what think you of our friend and the minister of justice?"

"I think he's sweet, and that he's kind," Belle answered with a smile for Clopin and Quasimodo, which morphed into a frown as she considered Frollo. "While _that one's_ mean, and his is coarse, but still refined. But you are _dear_," she assured Quasimodo, "if still unsure."

"It's a wonder that the streets haven't called to you before," Clopin added.

"Oh they have," Quasimodo assured them. "I just... never had the courage to leave the bell tower before..."

"Well, you picked the perfect day," Clopin assured the boy. "Not even Frollo will look twice at you today, if you keep from drawing his attention specifically. Today your face is just an excellent mask. Go, my friend, go and enjoy the Feast of Fools."

"Thank you," Quasimodo said with a smile, and pushed himself up from the table. "I will!" he declared, and then he was gone, vanished among the crowds.

"And may I engage the lady for a dance?" Clopin asked, turning to Belle and offering his hand.

"Your feet are not sore yet?" she teased, even as she slipped her hand into his. "You do not need to ask the King of Fools _permission_ to dance with his daughter?" she added with a laugh.

"Oh!" Clopin cried in delight. "Your father is this year's king? Truly? How wonderful! As _Prince des Sots_, it is practically my _duty_ to dance with our King's daughter then," he declared happily. "I do so enjoy when duty and pleasure align."

Belle laughed happily and let Clopin guide her seamlessly into the dance that was already taking place in one part of the square. All day they danced, and feasted, and laughed together. Clopin had to excuse himself now and then to his appointed duty, but he always returned to her, and he escorted her around the festivities, showing her the wonders of the holiday through new eyes.

~oOo~

Clopin introduced Belle _properly_ to Esmeralda and her goat Djali, as it had been a _very_ brief meeting earlier in the day, while the dancer and her goat were taking a quick break from entertaining the Parisians.

"And where is your handsome friend in his great mask?" Esmeralda asked once the introductions were done and she'd actually _properly thanked_ Belle for distracting the guards and helping her collect back her earnings of the morning.

"Why, right here!" Clopin answered with some drama, a hand splayed over his chest as he bowed deeply.

Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "Not _you_," she scolded with a smile. "When we were getting people up onto the stage, looking for our King of Fools, she was standing with another guy," she explained.

"Oh," Clopin said softly as realisation struck him of exactly _who_ she was talking about.

"He went to have as much fun today as he could," Belle answered.

Esmeralda nodded. "Fair enough," she agreed.

"Because it is the only day he _can_ have fun," Belle finished softly.

Esmeralda frowned in confusion, and raised an eyebrow in silent demand for an explanation.

"He is the bell ringer," Clopin explained quietly. "Raised and kept away from the world by Frollo."

Esmeralda's eyes went wide and a hand flew to her mouth. "Oh that poor boy. No, knowing who he is, I could _never_ pull him up onto the stage for such a thing."

"We just _had_ to pull your papa instead," Clopin said with a smile just for Belle.

"I should probably go see him," Belle answered. "I haven't paid my respects to the king yet this year after all."

"Then, ma beauté, please allow me to escort you," Clopin requested, and gallantly offered his arm.

Esmeralda raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly at the gesture, even as Belle smiled and accepted the offered arm.

Belle sighed as she looked around the colourful pageantry that surrounded them.

"Is something troubling you, Mademoiselle?" Clopin asked. "On this day of all days?"

Belle shook her head and forced the melancholy away. "I'm going to miss it," she admitted.

"Ah, but it will come again in a year," Clopin reassured her with a smile, "and there are _other_ festivals to celebrate between now and next year."

Belle shook her head. "Papa has taken it into his head to leave Paris and settle in a small, close-minded village where we have lived once before, a few days travel away," she said, "and I couldn't let him leave _alone_. Whatever he may say on the matter, Papa just isn't as young as he once was, and hasn't been without a woman in the house since... well, I don't think he's _ever_ been without a woman in the house," Belle admitted thoughtfully. "His mother, and then mine, and then I filled the role when she passed away..." though there _was_ that time when she had been a prisoner/guest of the castle. He'd been alone then. And look at what had become of him in that short time! Sick, near _death_ because he could not be sensible about caring for himself.

"Ma chere," Clopin said gently, and forced her to stop walking, "what do _you_ want, for yourself?" he asked earnestly, even took her chin between his gloved finger and thumb so he could force her to look him in the face when she answered.

Belle's eyes searched his frantically a moment, and then she took a deep breath. "I want adventure in the great wide _somewhere_, I want it more than I can tell," she admitted, and then, more quietly, "and for once it might be grand to have someone understand: I want so much more than they've got planned..."

Clopin smiled down at her, and it was the most tender smile anybody had ever seen on his face that was not directed at a child. "There _is_ a certain expectation of women of your class, isn't there ma chere?"

"Oui," Belle agreed unhappily, and buried her face a moment in Clopin's tunic. "We seem to be exchanging a great many confidences for one day's acquaintance," she noted softly when she straightened her back once more.

"It _is_ Topsy Turvy Day," Clopin replied wryly, as if that explained it all. Perhaps it did.

Why else take strangers into confidences that had not even been truly shared with her only remaining family? Her father didn't know of her dreams for her life any more than _Gaston_ had, though he understood her better in nearly every other way.

"_There_ is my daughter!" Maurice called happily when they were close enough that he could spot them. "Belle, are you having fun?"

Belle smiled. "Of course I am Papa," she answered, and wrapped her arms around him to give him a brief hug. "It's the Feast of Fools, how could it be possible to _not_ have fun?"

Maurice chuckled. "Well, Minister Frollo doesn't look like he's enjoying himself," he pointed out.

"Minister Frollo wouldn't know how to have fun if his life depended on it," Belle returned smartly even as she turned her head slightly so that she could see the dour man. "He looks constipated," she added dismissively.

Clopin could not help but roar with laughter, and he laughed so hard that he actually fell over where he stood. Maurice was only saved a similar indignity because he was already seated, though he did slide down a bit as he clutched his sides and laughed.

~oOo~

The gypsies were packing up and disappearing, and the festival was coming to a close when it happened. Someone discovered that Quasimodo was _not_ wearing a mask, and screamed in... shock, surprise, likely a small bit of fear as well. It drew attention from the soldiers as well as the other Parisians. Frollo's soldiers, who dragged him up onto a platform where there was a wheel on its side, and tied him there. Another soldier threw a piece of fruit at the poor boy, and others soon followed his example while more soldiers saw to it that the wheel turned.

"What has that poor boy done to receive such treatment?" Maurice demanded.

"He left the bell tower," Belle answered her father softly.

Maurice's eyes went wide. "Oh," he said softly as he realised exactly who it was. Then he frowned in determination. "Come on Belle," he ordered her. "I'm not going to stand for this, and I'm king for today at least."

Belle and her father tried to push their way through the crowds to where Quasimodo was being so publicly humiliated... but Esmeralda beat them there.

"You there, gypsy girl, get down at once!" Frollo ordered.

"Yes your honour, just as soon as I free this poor boy," Esmeralda answered him over the silent crowd.

"I _forbid it_!" he snapped.

Esmeralda frowned, as did a number of others in the crowd, but it was she alone who drew a knife and cut the ropes holding Quasimodo in place.

"How dare you defy me?" Frollo demanded.

"You mistreat this boy the same way you mistreat my people!" Esmeralda answered him fiercely.

Belle and Maurice reached the stage of Quasimodo's humiliation then, and as he was free of the ropes, urged him to slip off the stage and down while Esmeralda had everybody's attention. Belle quickly wiped the spoiled fruit from the boy's face and Maurice gave him the kingly robe he'd been granted as King of Fools to wear as a new disguise so he could return to Notre Dame unrecognised and unhindered.

"Thank you," he said quietly, then wasted no time in hurrying away.

"You speak of justice, but you are cruel to those most in need of your help!" Esmeralda's words echoed around the square.

"Silence!" Frollo ordered.

"Justice!" Esmeralda yelled back passionately.

"Captain, arrest her," Frollo ordered the man in gleaming armour who had been at his side all day.

A circle of ten soldiers surrounded Esmeralda where she stood in prominence.

What followed was probably the _perfect_ way to end the Feast of Fools – a great chase through the square where guards were humiliated at every turn and Esmeralda escaped dramatically to the cheers of all the Parisians – save of course Frollo and the guards who she had escaped from.

"Find her!" Frollo ordered fiercely.

"I do hope she gets away alright," Maurice said quietly to Belle as they left the square for their home. "Frollo's looking very keen on catching her."

Belle nodded in worried agreement, and hurried to her room once they were home. She checked that every window was shut and that no one would be able to see in before she reached into the hidden drawer of her small vanity and withdrew the elegant hand-mirror she had kept when she left Mrs Potts and all the others behind.

"I would like to see the gypsy girl Esmeralda, please," she asked of the mirror softly.

It glowed, and the image of her face reflected back to her faded in favour of Esmeralda's face – she was walking between rows of candles and apparently praying.

There was a knock on her door.

"Belle?" her father called.

"Come in Papa," she answered as she set the mirror face down, the glow dulling and the voice of Esmeralda's prayers fading slightly.

"Well?" he asked, and glanced at the mirror.

Belle followed his gaze. "I believe she has found sanctuary in Notre Dame," she answered him softly.

"Frollo will post guards," Maurice said. "If he hasn't already. The poor girl is trapped more surely than you were in the Beast's castle."

"And she will be made far less welcome than I was," Belle added wryly. "Certainly less comfortable," she added as she thought of the gypsy sleeping on the stone floors and compared it to the luxurious bed and fine clothes that _she_ had been given with _her_ imprisonment.

"There is nothing we can do in this," Maurice reminded her gently.

"I could take a basket of my clothes for her to disguise herself in and walk out of the church unnoticed by the guards," she suggested.

Maurice chuckled and smiled crookedly as he shook his head at his dear daughter. "I don't think they'd fit her," he pointed out. "You, my girl, are far more slender than she is."

Belle sighed. She knew that. She just couldn't let the thought go without consideration. "I could at least take her a blanket and something to eat..."

"I am sure that the archdeacon has such things in Notre Dame already," Maurice assured her.

Belle picked up the mirror again. It still showed Esmeralda, but now she was in company of Quasimodo, and he was carrying her down the outside of the church with none of the guards the wiser.

Belle smiled and showed Maurice the scene, who chuckled with satisfied delight before he kissed Belle's cheek and bid her pleasant dreams.

"You too Papa," she called softly after him as he closed her door. Then she turned back to the mirror in her hands. She bit her lip nervously a moment, then... "I'd like to see Clopin Trouillefou, please," she requested softly.

The mirror flashed a moment and the scene changed.

Belle shut her eyes quickly. "That was... maybe more of Monsieur Trouillefou than I needed to see," she said, a tremor in her voice.

The mirror's glow dulled, and Belle risked a peek again. She sighed with relief to see only her own reflection there once more. She put the mirror away and decided to do as Clopin had been doing in the mirror – that is, she changed for bed. She had a smile on her face and a blush on her cheeks as she lay her head down on her pillow, wondering what the next day would bring.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day brought terror. Frollo had learned that Esmeralda had somehow gotten past the guards he had posted around the cathedral. He hadn't stopped yet to think on how, it seemed, for he simply had his guards sweeping the city. He ordered people taken away on no charges at all, and was relentless in his hunt for the girl.

Belle slowed her walk to the cathedral as she passed Clopin's puppet cart. It was boarded up, abandoned where it sat, and somehow the reds, purples and greens did not seem as lively, nor the gold gleam as brightly, as they had when he was in it, telling stories to the children. Even the trinkets which had shone in the shifting sun yesterday as they hung from the eaves seemed to be dusty without their owner there to sing his song and play with his puppets.

"You're showing an unusual interest in a cart where no _show_ is going on," a soldier commented lowly to her.

Belle blinked and turned in surprise. "Hm?" she asked. It wasn't either of the two she'd sent on a fools errand for her 'stolen' basket the day before, nor was it the new captain in his shining golden armour. "I was admiring the workmanship," she said lightly with a gesture that encompassed the entire cart. "I am a carpenter's daughter, you see," she explained with a smile. "Good day, Monsieur Guard," she bid with a dip of her head, and continued on her way to the cathedral.

He huffed, but let her on her way without further trouble.

In the church, Belle knelt to say her prayers, asking forgiveness for the lies she told to men who were _supposed_ to uphold the law and keep the peace, and imploring safety for Clopin, Esmeralda and Djali from Frollo's persecution.

Silently she rose and wandered deeper into the church, seeking stairs that would take her up to the bell tower. With as busily as Frollo was hunting gypsies today, he would likely not be by to visit Quasimodo.

She'd just finally crested the last stairs when she heard a voice.

"Any sign of her?"

It was Quasimodo.

"Oh, it's a lost cause!" another voice wailed in answer. "She could be anywhere! In the stocks, in the dungeon! I'm a wreck!" the unknown, but male, voice, sobbed.

"Nice work, Victor," a wry voice quipped.

Belle stifled a giggle as she sought out these people who were with Quasimodo up here in his tower, following the voices to the owners.

"No, he's right. What are we gonna do?" Quasimodo asked, a lost note in his voice.

"What are you guys talkin' about? If I know Esmeralda, she's three steps ahead of Frollo and _well_ out of harms way," insisted another voice.

"You really think so?" Quasimodo asked.

Belle finally spotted them, and smiled at the sight. It seemed there was a bit of magic in the church for those willing to believe in it. The _statuary_ were the ones talking with the boy.

"Quasimodo?" Belle called, announcing herself.

The statues all froze up at the sound of her voice, fixed as stone where they sat.

"Oh please, don't hide on my account," Belle said with a smile as she lay a hand on the tallest of them. "How are you, Quasimodo?" she asked.

"Worried," he admitted. "These are Victor, Laverne, and Hugo," he added by way of introducing the statues.

"How d'you do," they all mumbled in greeting.

"Pleased to meet you," she answered with a smile, then reached into her basket. "Normally, I don't take this from the house, and I _certainly_ never _show_ it to anybody -" not after what happened _last_ time she'd showed the mirror to anybody "- but here," she said, and handed over the mirror. "It can show you _anything_. You only need to ask it."

Quasimodo accepted the mirror, and the statues come to life moved to peer around him and look into it.

"Please," Quasimodo said to the mirror. "Will you show me Esmeralda?" he asked.

The mirror glowed, and there was a hunched figure wrapped in a cloak, face hidden, watching as Frollo ordered a house to be burned – with the family who lived there locked inside. His captain refused, and broke into the house to save the family when Frollo raised a torch to the windmill and thatched roof himself.

The captain was knocked down, about to have his head chopped off on the spot, but the hunched figure straightened and with a makeshift sling thew a stone to upset Frollo's horse. The captain freed himself and stole the horse, but he was shot as he was riding across a bridge. The hunched figure was revealed to be Esmeralda as she hurried to the river in the shadows of the bridge, then dived into the river to save the captain.

"She's alright," Quasimodo breathed in relief.

"And probably on her way here," Hugo pointed out. "Where else can she hide _him_ after all? If he isn't dead already?"

"But what if Frollo comes?" Victor asked, worried.

"Esmeralda has already _claimed_ sanctuary here," Belle pointed out.

"Right," Laverne agreed. "She'll be safe even if he does come up here and see her."  
"It's the captain who'd be in danger if discovered," Quasimodo said softly.

Belle lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I heard him ask Frollo for permission to stop the cruelty committed against you yesterday Quasimodo," she assured him. "But as a soldier he has orders. You heard Frollo just then. The punishment for insubordination is death."

Quasimodo nodded. "I will make a place for him to hide and recover among the bells where Frollo never goes," he decided. "You'd best leave," he added to her. "It wouldn't be good for Frollo to find _you_ here either."

Belle nodded and accepted back her mirror. She wrapped it up in cloth and tucked it back into her basket, and as she walked through the markets on the way back to her father's shop, she bought some things for their supper and piled them on top of the mirror as well.

As she passed Clopin's cart again, she studied the area around it. Stone and water. A wooden cart surrounded by stone lined streets and the stone parts of the nearby buildings and puddles on the ground from where it had rained in the night – and a few extra puddles from where children had been throwing buckets of water onto the sides of the cart so that it would be safe should Frollo try to burn it.

Clopin had some friends among the young Parisians at least.

~oOo~

After she had shared her meal with her father, Belle retreated to her room.

"Please, I wish to see Clopin," she asked the mirror, and breathed a sigh of relief to see that he was alive and well. Indeed, the man was eating his own supper and seemed to be planning a new puppet with the hand not occupied in holding his bread.

She wasn't normally one taken up with appearances, but she _did_ know a handsome man when she saw one. She hadn't denied that _Gaston_ was handsome, after all. He was just also rude, and conceited, and boorish, and brainless, and cruel...

Clopin was handsome. Not in the same way Gaston had been handsome. Not in the same way that the prince had been when the curse was lifted and he was himself again – dead, but himself again in death.

Belle spent a few moments just admiring his face, the one he kept hidden behind that bright mask of his whenever he ventured into the streets of Paris.

Assured now that he was safe, Belle shook herself. "I need to see Frollo," she told the mirror.

The image changed.

The wicked man was telling his guards to make ready to follow Quasimodo should he leave the bell tower. It seemed he'd finally figured out how Esmeralda had escaped Notre Dame.

"Where is Esmeralda?" she asked the mirror, now worried, she had spotted the gypsy as she was going down the steps of Notre Dame, but had known better than to greet her at the time.

The mirror's view shifted again. It showed Esmeralda kissing the injured captain where he lay in a corner of the bell tower where only moonlight shone through. That was unexpected.

"She couldn't have brought him there on her own," Belle said, determined to not be flustered by the sight. She was a grown woman after all, she'd given her first kiss (of that kind) to the Beast after he was restored to himself, just before he had died, and hadn't kissed anyone since, not even an affectionate peck to her father's cheek or increasingly bald head. Though... She bit her lip at the considerably more _passionate_ kiss she was watching. Giving her first kiss to a dying man had _not_ been like that... "Show me Quasimodo please," she asked the mirror.

The mirror showed her a boy who looked like his heart was breaking as he sat on his stool and carved a good likeness of Belle's father as he'd looked in his regalia as King of Fools.

"Good evening, Quasimodo," Frollo greeted.

Quasimodo's head snapped up. "Master, I did not hear you coming," he stuttered slightly. "I was not expecting you," he added. "You have been..." the boy gestured out towards the view of Paris from where he now stood, "very _busy_ today."

"I am _never_ too busy to share a meal with with you, dear boy," Frollo answered. "I've brought a little treat."

Quasimodo hurried to fetch two cups and two plates, vastly different from each other. One set fine pewter, the other set of simple, coarse wood.

Belle could not help but wrinkle her nose at the blatant display of differentiation that Frollo enforced. The fine things for the public official, the poor things for the teenager with the unfortunate face.

"This one's new," Frollo noted, as he picked up a carved figure that was an excellent likeness of Esmeralda. "It's very good," he praised indifferently. "It looks like... that gypsy girl," he finished with a scowl.

"I had opportunity to see her from up close before I carved it, Master," Quasimodo answered.

"I know," Frollo growled. "You helped her escape! And now all of Paris is burning because of _you_!" he spat, shifting the blame from his own shoulders as the one who gave the orders to Quasimodo, who had done nothing but show compassion to another person. "But it will be over soon," Frollo continued when Quasimodo said nothing. "I have discovered her hideout, and at dawn, I shall attack with a thousand men," he pronounced, and swept out of the room.

Belle set the mirror down on her vanity and thought about that. A clear bluff. Frollo would not be able to attack Notre Dame and get away with it. He was expecting Quasimodo to leave the bell tower to go _to_ Esmeralda to warn her of the danger.

There was nothing that _she_ could do now though, and it was late. She could truly only wait for morning to come, and hope that, come morning, things would be better. She tucked the mirror away and readied herself for sleep.

It was the only thing she could do.

~oOo~

After hearing Frollo say that he 'knew' where she was hiding, Esmeralda had waited until he had left before she came down again to Quasimodo.

"I must warn everybody," she said softly, worry lacing her tone. "Whether he really knows where I am or not, if he's found the location of the Court of Miracles..."

Quasimodo nodded in understanding. "Of course," he agreed. "I couldn't stand by and let _you_ get hurt. I do not expect you to stay here when you could be warning your people of the potential danger."

"Quasimodo... _will_ you come with me this time?" she asked.

"I..." Quasimodo hesitated, then sighed. "You'll need someone to help you carry the captain," he pointed out, "since I get the feeling you don't _really_ want to leave him."

Esmeralda smiled gratefully. "Thank you, so much," she said. "I can never repay you for this."

Quasimodo chuckled. "Sure you can," he joked. "Introduce me to a nice _blind_ girl."

"Oh, Quasi!"

He shook his head and climbed up to fetch down the captain.

Esmeralda led them through the shadows of Paris, through streets and into a graveyard. She took the captain from Quasimodo so that the strong young man could push aside the stone covering, and then waited for him to shift it back in place once more before she continued on.

"Esmeralda!" greeted gypsies as they broke from their posts as guards – where they were hidden, disguised as skeletons among skeletons.

"Frollo says he knows where the Court of Miracles is and plans to attack at dawn," she answered quickly, even as she hugged each man in greeting.

One of them immediately ran on ahead, intent on conveying the message.

By the time Esmeralda, Quasimodo and the injured captain reached the Court of Miracles, it was half-way packed up, and all in a flurry of motion.

"My dear," Clopin greeted, his voice dry. "You really do insist on annoying Frollo, don't you? And to his face, rather than behind his back so that he cannot punish you."

"Clopin," Esmeralda answered, and embraced the brightly-dressed, mask-wearing man tightly.

"Your cart is packed up," Clopin informed her. "I've been minding it for you, since mine is still at rest in the Parisian streets, and so for now out of my reach. Can I hope that it is not burned where it sits, do you think?" he asked.

"I don't know," Esmeralda admitted sadly, and looked to the captain who had been able to take his own weight as they descended into the catacombs.

He shook his head helplessly. "Frollo ordered a green cart pushed into the river not long into the afternoon," he admitted. "But I don't know what he has done since I was shot."

Clopin shook his head. His cart had bits of green paint, but it was hardly the predominant colour.

"Um..." Quasimodo hesitated to speak up. "Is it the bright red cart just a few streets away from the square?" he asked.

"It is," Clopin answered. "Do you know what has become of it my friend?" he asked hopefully.

"I saw it on the way here," he answered. "With a puddle of water around each wheel," he added.

Esmeralda, Clopin and the captain all blinked in surprise at the news.

"Water-logged?" Clopin asked, confused.

"When I noticed it from the bell tower, it looked like a game the children were playing," Quasimodo explained. "To see how high they could make the water splash on the sides of the cart."

Clopin smiled. "The children who watch my puppet show..." he said quietly, and raised a hand to his heart. It was touching, the concern of the children and their efforts on his behalf.

"He's in the catacombs!" came a shout from the main arch.

If activity in the Court of Miracles had been hurried before, then it was frantic after _that_ announcement. When the soldiers flooded in, it rapidly became a very different type of chaos, with children and adults alike being arrested despite the best efforts of fathers and husbands to fend off the soldiers and give their women and children a chance to escape.

"After decades of searching," Frollo mused as he walked down the steps. "The Court of Miracles, and oh the wonders I have caught in my net. The gypsy witch, and even Captain Phoebus back from the dead. Another 'miracle', no doubt. I will _remedy_ that," he promised the blonde man dangerously. "There's going to be a little _bonfire_ in the square tomorrow," Frollo announced, "and you are _all_ invited to attend."

"Master..." Quasimodo said softly, horror in his voice.

Frollo looked down at him. "Except for _you_, Quasimodo," he corrected, and directed some of his men to return the hunchback to the bell tower – and to make sure he stayed there. "You _have_ been useful after all. Your distinctive form made _following_ you here that much easier. But tomorrow you will do nothing but _watch_ the festivities from the bell tower," he ordered cruelly.

Quasimodo wept as he was dragged away.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a banging on their front door the next morning, and a cry going out of a public execution in the square before Notre Dame.

Belle's blood turned cold in her veins to hear it, and as she dressed she also slipped a knife into the folds of her dress. It had been Gaston's once. It was the knife he had killed Prince Adam with – and wasn't it ironic that she had only learned his name _after_ he had died. The knife was a horrible thing, but sharp, and Belle had kept it more because she had hated the feelings of fear and helplessness she had experienced then so recently. The wolves that had attacked her when she ran from the Beast in his fury, and Gaston's great bulk had been difficult to deal with, unarmed as she was... and when she and her father had been locked in the basement with no way to escape, a knife would have been useful then to break the glass or shift the lock.

She was afraid to use it, but she was more afraid of the idea of _needing_ it and _not having _it.

Belle hesitated before she left her room, a glance spared for her vanity where the mirror was safely in its hiding place. But no. If Clopin was in the square, awaiting execution, then she did not need any reason more to hurry. If he was _not_ there, _then_ she could return home and seek him in the mirror.

He was in the square awaiting execution, with soldiers standing at the doors of his cage, of the captain's cage, and other cages with other prisoners in them. It looked so _wrong_ to see him there, all in his bright colours and lurid mask still, but behind bars.

Belle left her father's side and hurried to them.

"Monsieur," she asked the guard. "What crimes did these men commit?" she asked, with a gesture to Clopin and the three other gypsies in the mobile prison with him. "I have seen one play the pipe, another the drum, while this man walked on stilts and _this_ man tells stories to children. Why, _he_ was the _Prince de Sots_ at the Feast of Fools this year!"

"Minister Frollo says they are thieves and scoundrels Mademoiselle," the guard answered with a shrug. "I do not object to there being fewer of such on the streets, and I don't dare question if Frollo is right or wrong. I have a wife at home, expecting a child. I cannot risk to find myself in the same position as the captain," he explained with a vague gesture towards where the blonde man stood in his own cage not far away.

"Frollo would accuse us of theft if we accepted a gift on our birthdays," Clopin snarled as he pressed against the bars that contained him.

The bleat of a goat joined that in affirmation.

Belle looked lower than she had before. "What crime did this _goat_ commit?" she asked with incredulity.

The soldier shrugged. "I do not question my orders," he answered, turning slightly so that he also Clopin over his shoulder.

"Monsieur," Belle said softly. "May I stand near them, until they are..." she trailed off.

The guard shrugged, nodded an absent permission, and turned his gaze up to the stake where Esmeralda was tied. Where other guards were piling bundles of kindling to burn her with.

"Mademoiselle," Clopin said softly to her, bending slightly in his cage so that he could look Belle in the eye. "This is not a place for you to be."

"You are here," she answered him simply, and placed her hand over his on the bars of his cage. She did not look away from him as Frollo lit Esmeralda's pyre. Did not look away when Quasimodo saved her – nor when the crowd cheered for her rescue. Did not look away when Frollo ordered his soldiers to break down the door of the cathedral.

"Citizens of Paris!" the blonde captain yelled across them all when he escaped his cage and stood atop it.

Still Belle did not look away from Clopin.

"Frollo has persecuted our people, ransacked _our_ city! Now he has declared war on Notre Dame herself!" he declaimed loudly. "Will we allow it?" he demanded of the people.

"No!" was the resounding response from people all around her.

She finally looked away from Clopin to take hold of the knife she had brought with her, and broke the lock on his cage with it.

"And where does a pretty girl like you get a wicked looking thing like that?" Clopin asked with a delicate touch to the tip of Belle's dagger once he is free and standing before her.

"A story for another time," Belle answered with a slightly crooked smile as she turned it around in her grip, an action that presented him with the handle.

Clopin smiled back and accepted the weapon. "Then we'd both best live to see the end of this fight," he informed her. "Because I very much want to hear this tale."

It was not long before the fighting had mostly ceased though, all preferring instead to watch the spectacle above of Frollo chasing after Quasimodo and Esmeralda, a drawn and gleaming sword in his hands. Not one person failed to see him fall, clutched onto the stone carving he had been standing on a moment before – though one soldier was not so smart as to get out of the way of Frollo's fallen sword. The stone cracked a bit when it hit the top-most step of Notre Dame. Frollo's landing was considerably messier. If it were not for his robes of office, and that everyone had _seen_ his fall, no one would have known him to look at him.

The soldiers, those still standing, all immediately lay down their weapons, and they all waited for the heroes of the hour to return to them – the captain had gone into the church after Frollo, and had been witnessed catching the hunchback when he slipped from Esmeralda's grip.

Esmeralda and Phoebes had reappeared, hale, healthy, and victorious.

The crowd cheered.

But when they quieted, Esmeralda went back to the cathedral's doors and held out a hand to a figure hiding there in the shadows. Cautiously, Quasimodo stepped into the light.

"Three cheers for Quasimodo!" Clopin rallied, and the crowd obliged.

The boy _had_ saved Esmeralda after all, and rather dramatically at that. Quasimodo was guided into the crowd by one of the children who enjoyed Clopin's puppet show, and hoisted up onto the shoulders of a couple of men, a hero, and accepted at last by the people of Paris, despite his deformity.

"So here is a riddle to guess, if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame," Belle sang softly to Clopin with a smile on her face as she recalled the tale the man had been telling the children the day they had met. "What makes a monster and what makes a man? Sing the bells..."

"Whatever their pitch, you can feel them bewitch you," Clopin cut in gently, and wrapped his arms around her waist, careful of the blade he still held. "The rich and ritual knells of the bells of Notre Dame."

Belle smiled happily, and was content to lean into Clopin's embrace.

"Mademoiselle, I should like the tale that comes with this knife in my hand," Clopin requested softly.

Belle nodded and drew back. "There was a man in the village where I was living with my father. He wanted me to _marry_ him," she said with disgust.

Clopin chuckled. "I take it you disliked him?" he asked, vaguely amused. "Was he unattractive like our friend the hunchback?"

Belle shook her head. "Worse, Gaston was _handsome_," she answered. "And _rude_, and _conceited_, and... _boorish_, _brainless_! He couldn't even understand how people could read a book that lacked pictures–! Well, not long after I _rejected_ his officious, _offensive_ proposal of marriage, I became a prisoner in an enchanted castle," she said, determined to continue her story. "Not for an overly long time, and I was treated as an honoured guest for the period that I was there," she assured Clopin.

"But you weren't free," he said fiercely, well sympathising with such a situation.

Belle shrugged. "The castle had a wonderful library though," she recalled, "and if I could not have adventures of my own, then a library full of the adventures of others would serve me just as well. But... well, the master of the castle learned to be charming, and I... Well, I suppose I lacked other company, but I came to love him, and he loved me. Loved me enough to let me go when we found out my father was sick. Gaston was determined to impose himself on me when I returned though, and when he learned where I had been, what had happened... he went to kill..." Belle cut herself off.

Clopin draped an arm around Belle's shoulders.

"He killed him. I tried to stop it, but... The enchantment on the castle was broken at last, but Gaston had already driven the knife into him and the wound stayed even when the curse was lifted. Gaston fell to his death even as he drove the knife into..." Belle trailed off. "I kept the knife... So that I would not be defenceless against people like Gaston again."

Clopin nodded in understanding and handed back the knife to her.

"Will you go with your father when he leaves Paris?" Clopin asked softly. "He is returning to the same village, you said?"

Belle nodded as she slipped the knife away. "Oui," she agreed. "I worry for him."

"He would not be welcome at the castle you freed from its enchantment?" Clopin suggested. "It would seem to me that they would be pleased to repay you a debt, unless they hold you responsible for the death of their master?"

"With the prince dead, the staff all agreed to defer to _me_. Cogsworth gave me all the papers of ownership for the castle before we returned to Paris," Belle answered before she even realised exactly what she was saying. "Of course! The castle! Lumiere is always delighted to welcome a guest, and Mrs Potts and Cogsworth would see he was taken care of, and he is my father so... Oh, Clopin, thank you!" she cried happily, and kissed his cheek. "I must find my father," she declared as she rose to her feet. "And then I must prepare for the journey!" she said happily as she ran down the steps of the cathedral.

She was unaware that behind her, Clopin raised a black-gloved hand slowly to his cheek, and his eyes followed her form through the crowd until he could no longer see her.

~oOo~

Caught up as she was with the general elation of having _not_ been burned at the stake, Quasimodo being hailed as a hero, and the general warm, fuzzy feelings that she got when in Phoebus' company, Esmeralda _still_ managed to spot Clopin in the crowd. The bright colours of his tunic helped of course, but there was more to it than that. The man was her older brother, of sorts. Her parents had been taken by Frollo when she was little, and Clopin had taken her in, even though he was only newly a teenager himself at the time. As she'd grown up, she'd learned to look out for him as well.

He was sitting on the steps of Notre Dame, not far from where she stood in fact, talking with a young woman. It took her a moment, but Esmeralda recognised the girl reasonably quickly. It was Belle Leburinrusée. The young woman who had helped her when the guards had wanted to arrest her for theft on the day of the Feast of Fools, and who had spent most of her time _at_ the Feast of Fools in the company of Clopin. On his arm even, a good deal of the time.

Esmeralda saw Belle kiss Clopin on the cheek and run off, saw Clopin raise a gloved hand to his cheek where he had been kissed, square between his neatly trimmed beard and his brightly painted mask.

Esmeralda excused herself to Phoebus, and went with Djali to sit with Clopin.

"I saw that," she said lightly.

"She kissed me," Clopin answered faintly.  
"She did," Esmeralda agreed neutrally. To kiss a cheek in Paris was hardly a rare action, but this _one_ seemed to be _more_ somehow.

"She came to the cart where I was being held," he told her, but his eyes didn't waver from Belle's form as it disappeared into the crowd. "She held my hand through the bars and didn't look away from me until the Parisians around her moved to start releasing us to fight back for Paris. She'd brought a knife with her and used it to free us, then she... gave it to me. She smiled and she gave it to me."

Esmeralda watched Clopin's expression silently as she listened to him talk, what she could see of it through his mask, though she had learned to read the bright mask as well over the years. Both of them had been orphaned young. It was why they were so close now, the two of them as brother and sister, just and only them as family. Neither had been settled in an arranged marriage by their parents as was frequently done among their people. They had no parents to make such arrangements after all, and at the appropriate age, they'd had little inclination or resources to secure such things. There were few gypsies of their age that had no wife or husband, and most of those in such a position were so because their partner had died... either they had been executed at Frollo's orders or they had died of illness after being released from being tortured in the dungeons of the Palace of Justice – again, at Frollo's orders.

Esmeralda felt that she had finally found the one man for her, and she would turn to Clopin as her family to discuss matters of course when she was certain. Now, she wondered if Clopin might himself be as afflicted with affection as she was.

"I told her," Clopin said, "I told her that it was not a place for her, and wished she would not stay to witness our deaths. Do you know what she said, Esmeralda?" he asked, and finally looked away from the crowd that Belle had disappeared into, and focused his gaze on the woman at his side.

Esmeralda shook her head. She had, after all, been rather preoccupied at the time.

"She said to me 'you are here'," Clopin supplied softly, and turned his gaze down to his gloved, empty hands. "Esmeralda, I have known her for only a little more than two days, and I already know that I have never known a woman like Mademoiselle Belle Leburinrusée before in my life, and will never meet another like her again."

"Then what are you doing sitting here?" Esmeralda demanded fondly, a smile on her face. "Go after her!" she insisted with a laugh, and shoved his shoulder lightly.

"She is _leaving Paris_, Esmeralda," Clopin stated. "Perhaps forever." There was no particular emotion to it, but Paris was as much his home as it was the home of all the Parisians who had never thought of leaving. It had cost his parents their lives to get him into the city, and he had made a life here. He left occasionally, when he was feeling too trapped within the city walls, but he always came back eventually. "And I need to be here for _you_, don't I?" he asked archly, and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I must be ready to haggle your bride price when the Captain asks to marry you."

Esmeralda blushed and bit her lip. "We could skip it," she offered softly.

"You're a valuable woman, Esmeralda. He can't have you for free," Clopin stated firmly. "Besides, as a man of his position, I'm sure that _he_ can _afford_ to pay an appropriate bride price."

Esmeralda sighed and shook her head in fond exasperation before she leant in to rest her head on Clopin's shoulder.

"Esmeralda?" Phoebus called as he came over to them. "There's confiscated property that needs to be retrieved from the Palace of Justice. I'm going to need someone who knows what belongs to who for sorting the whole mess out."

"Go," Clopin urged her softly.

Esmeralda gave him a quick hug about the shoulders, then rose to join the restored captain in keeping the peace. Djali followed her, as he always did.

"Whatever the pitch, you can feel them bewitch you, the rich and the ritual knells..." Clopin hummed to himself as he stared at his hands again. "Belle sang with Notre Dame."

Clopin sighed and hung his head, then pushed himself up off the cathedral steps and went to seek out his cart.

He was relieved to find it undamaged, if a bit cleaner than it had been for a while, and he was delighted to thank the children who rushed up to him with their own stories of how they had made sure _his_ cart would not be destroyed by the soldiers – they only wanted another puppet show, and to give them a show would take his mind off his own troublesome thoughts for a little while.

When the tale was done and the children had applauded and returned to their homes, Clopin packed up his wagon. There wasn't much to do. He had made it ready to move to another part of the city after the Feast of Fools already. He simply had to close the shutters once more and fold up the few steps that he didn't _really_ need, but had for those occasions when he was too tired, returning to his cart after a long day, to jump up to the small ledge before his door.

He would likely be glad for those steps when the day was over. Clopin hitched himself into his cart where anyone else would hitch an animal. Djali's mother, a fine milking nanny goat they'd called Jolie, had done the task before she had run afoul of a particularly unpleasant dog in the autumn months just gone. Until Djali himself was big enough to pull a cart, or until Clopin could afford to buy another animal to take Jolie's place, then he would have to do his own pulling.


	5. Chapter 5

"The castle?" Maurice asked his daughter when she presented him with the idea. "You really think that..."

"Yes Papa," Belle assured him. "They will all be glad to have you, I am certain of it."

"Which just leaves the question of what _you_ will do, all on your own," Maurice countered, and raised a hand to cradle his daughter's face tenderly. "Belle..."

"I am perfectly capable of running my own household," she told her father fondly. "I will convert the shop into a bookshop, or a little school where I can teach children to read and write and do their sums," she continued. "Or, perhaps... I could travel..." she suggested softly, a wistful look in her eyes as she turned to look out to where Phillippe was tied up in the small courtyard they had behind the shop. A place where Maurice could work on larger projects such as repairing broken wagons or where he could load a large piece of furniture onto a cart to be taken to the buyer's house.

Her father apparently didn't hear her last suggestion. "Well, I suppose it's a respectable sort of thing to do with your time, and teaching will keep you in coin well enough, so I needn't worry about you going hungry without me here to provide for you. I'll help you rearrange the shop before I leave then," he said, and that seemed to be it.

Her fate was decided. She would remain in Paris, which was at least better than returning to that close-minded provincial town or to the castle with its hallways full of memories and lands that had been surrounded by wolves. She would _not_ travel. She would get in at least _one_ more adventure before that happened though.

"Before _we_ leave," she corrected him. "I should discuss some things with Cogsworth, and I would like to fetch some books from the library there."

Maurice chuckled. "Yes, yes," he agreed. "A school, however small, must have _books_ after all, especially if it might also be a bookshop."

Belle smiled back at him. If she decided to enjoy the country side of France on her way back from the castle to Paris, well, who would know?

That night, after a long day of collecting most of her father's tools up into the cart, clearing the shop and making it ready to be made into a school room, Belle lay her head down on her pillow exhausted, and did not think a moment on the mirror hidden in her vanity. She was not normally inclined to use it, but there had been a great deal to worry about over the past few days. That worry was past now, and the day had been long.

~oOo~

"Morning in Paris, the city awakes to the bells of Notre Dame," a smooth tenor sang from beyond Belle's window.

She had herself just recently woken to those very bells. She was dressed already and had been brushing her hair when that song had drifted up to her half-opened window-shutters from the street below.

"The fisherman fishes, the baker man bakes, to the bells of Notre Dame. From the big bells as loud as the thunder, to the little bells soft as a psalm, and some say the soul of the city's the toll of the bells, the bells of Notre Dame."

Belle had rushed to her window as soon as she'd finished tying back her hair – a task she had been half-way through when she realised that she really _was_ hearing _that_ song from _that_ voice coming from the street below her window.

She sank down to rest on her window-ledge and just watched the show with a smile on her face. A smile that grew when she took in the cart and saw that the colours were once more cheerful, the gold shining, and the various hanging no longer dull but glinting in the sun as they should. Yes, the whole cart was a happier sight for having Clopin in it, himself in bright colours save the black gloves that made his fingers look all the longer, performing his show to the children who had gathered about to watch.

A show that had not changed since she saw it... was it really only two days ago? On the morning of the Feast of Fools. Despite that Quasimodo was now a well-known figure to all of Paris, the boy was still much a mystery. He continued to live in the bell tower – it was his home, and he _was_ the cathedral's bell ringer – but though he had been somewhat introduced to the Parisians and he was not _as much_ of a mystery as he had been...

"So here is a riddle to guess, if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame," Clopin sang in that lilting tenor of his. "What makes a monster and what makes a man? Sing the bells. Whatever their pitch, you can feel them bewitch you, the rich and ritual knells of the bells of Notre Dame!"

Belle's smile stretched as she stifled laughter. That was not the way he had ended his tale on the day of the Feast of Fools. _That_ was from their little exchange yesterday after Frollo had died.

Belle hurried down from her room, and spared a glance for the kitchen before she went out onto the street.

"Has Monsieur Trouillefou had _breakfast_ yet?" she asked with a smile when the children had all returned to their chores and left Clopin to his cart.

"Non," he answered with a shake of his head and a slight smile on his face as he rested his elbows on the lintel of the window he gave his puppet show from. "Have _you_, Mademoiselle?"

Belle shook her head. "I haven't," she admitted. "Would you like to join my father and me for our morning meal?" she invited with a gesture towards... well, it was almost completely her school building now. Her father just needed to finish a few jobs, including making benches for Belle's potential students to sit on, and when she returned from taking him to the castle, she would need to spread the word that such was the new occupation of the building.

Clopin smiled softly and nodded. "Merci, Mademoiselle," he said.

"Ah, company for breakfast," Maurice greeted, and waved Clopin to sit. "And a younger back than mine," he added with a chuckle. "Dare I ask if I could employ you for a morning after our meal?" he asked.

Clopin blinked in surprise as he moved to the table. "Work?" he asked. "Monsieur, what work would you have for a gypsy?"

Maurice chuckled. "Work for an able body," he answered. "Whoever that body is, how should that affect my business?" he asked happily. "The shop needs to be rearranged into a school room before Belle and I leave, so that she won't have to rearrange everything by herself when she comes back," he explained.

"A school?" Clopin echoed curiously, eyes snapped up to Belle as he sat down.

"A school, with perhaps a few books to sell as well," Belle agreed, and started to set things out on the table. "But the journey to the castle, settling Papa there, and choosing books from the library to bring back, will mean at least a week before that happens."

Maurice patted her hand fondly. "Don't you worry Belle," he said kindly. "You'll have children coming in from all over to learn, I'm sure."

Belle's smile was fond, but a little strained and a little sad. Her father didn't notice, as he was distracted at that moment by his breakfast, but Clopin had been watching her closely since taking a seat at the table, and _he_ saw.

He ate the meal given to him slowly, and was still eating when Maurice excused himself to get on with the day's work – things that needed to be finished, to be packed up, before he could leave.

"Mademoiselle?" he asked softly, and reached across the table to lay his hand over Belle's. "What happened to adventures in the great wide somewhere?"

"I thought I might take a detour on my way back to Paris from the castle," she admitted softly, but did not look up from where his hand was over her own. "It would perhaps not be much of an adventure, but it would be something."

"Chérie," Clopin said softly. "January _isn't_ the time to go on adventures," he warned gently. "We have been lucky since the new year that no new snow has fallen here in Paris. You should know that in other places, it could very easily be knee-deep, even on the roads."

Belle bit her lip nervously, and raised her eyes to meet Clopin's. "But what other chance will I have?" she asked.

Clopin shook his head, a soft smile on his face. "With no one to govern where you may go or what you may do, what is to stop you from travelling when summer comes?" he countered.

A surprised and delighted laugh burst from Belle's lips. "Merci Monsieur Clopin!" she said, and rose from her seat so that she could lean across the table and kiss his cheek. She sat back with a smile on her face and finished her breakfast with a happier disposition.

When he had finished his own breakfast, and as he went to help Maurice in his shop (while Belle remained in the kitchen, cleaning up and making note of what she would need to buy that day) Clopin raised one gloved hand to where she had kissed his cheek, below the edge of his mask.

~oOo~

"Thank you for your help today Monsieur Trouillefou," Maurice said to Clopin with a smile as he set his hands to his back and felt the aches there. A bit of applied pressure and a number of cracks sounded out before he sighed happily. "I'm sure you had other plans for your day than helping an old man move furniture, so I am grateful."

"Not at all Monsieur," Clopin replied, though he _also_ stretched his back and cracked his spine. He was a fit, fairly strong man, but moving furniture wasn't the sort of labour he was used to. "There is no festival today, and a gypsy may govern his life as he pleases. I have no one to answer to."

"Really?" Maurice asked, surprised, but delighted to learn more of the man. "I'd thought you were the leader of the gypsies in Paris."

Clopin shrugged. "I am a large personality," he allowed. "But we are governed by our faith more than a single person. Should I be absent, it will make no great difference, save to the children who may miss my puppet shows."

"Papa, lunch is ready," Belle called softly from the door. "Monsieur Clopin, you are welcome to join us of course."

"Merci," Clopin answered.

"Thank you Belle," Maurice said. "You two go sit, I will be there is a moment," he added, waving them off.

Clopin sent Belle a curious look, but she only smiled and waved him into the kitchen.

Maurice had four gold coins in his hand when he rejoined them. "I would pay the same to any young man who helped me in the shop today," he informed Clopin as he set the coins on the table in front of him.

"But you have given me two meals today already," Clopin objected weakly. "I could not ask for more."

"You're not asking," Maurice said firmly. "I'm giving."

Clopin sighed as he looked at the coins. "We all ate well from the coin we made at the Feast of Fools, and the Captain has been good enough to help Esmeralda return all the property taken from us by Frollo when he captured us. It has been a time of plenty."

"Then put it somewhere safe for when a time of _need_ is upon you," Maurice advised. "I will not take it back. You have _earned_ this money."

Clopin nodded in acceptance and swept the coins across the table towards himself.

"Monsieur Trouillefou?" called the captain's voice from outside, and there was a knocking sound that was not on the door of the shop. "Are you there, Monsieur Trouillefou?"

"Excuse me," Clopin said softly to Belle and her father, and quickly rose from the table to go to the street.

Phoebus was there, knocking with a sort of polite insistence on Clopin's wagon.

"I'm here Captain," Clopin answered, and climbed the steps of his cart so that he was closer to eye-level with the man – already back in his armour and back on his horse. "What do you want? Surely you are not here to arrest me?"

"No," Phoebus agreed with a shake of his head. "I... I know that it must seem fast, but..." he breathed deeply. "Esmeralda said that I needed to speak to you about the possibility of my marrying her."

Clopin blinked in surprise. That _was_ fast. The captain had only returned to the city on the sixth, and then Frollo had been hunting Esmeralda for the whole day of the seventh before setting the girl on a pyre to be burned just yesterday morning. Four days in total, that day included, and really it must be, as the day was half-gone already.

"You'd best come inside," Clopin said lowly, shaking off his surprise. Esmeralda _had_ warned him yesterday morning after all. He had not expected it to be so soon, but it was said that it was in adversity that it was possible to truly _meet_ a person.

Phoebus dismounted and tied his horse loosely to Clopin's cart, then climbed the steps to the curtained half-door where Clopin stood with the wooden lower-door held open with one hand, and the draped cloth held back by the other, permitting the man entry.

"What sort of marriage negotiations are you expecting, Captain Phoebus?" Clopin started as he closed the door and dropped the curtain behind him. "Please sit," he added with a gesture to the only _seat_ in his home. For himself, he rested against the door-frame.

"Uh... A dower, a dowry..." he hesitated.

"A bride price?" Clopin asked pointedly. "I fully expect you to pay a _substantial_ dower to Esmeralda. You're a soldier. That's dangerous work. She _should_ have support in the event of your untimely death. You've already had more than a few close calls."

Phoebus winced. "Thank you for putting that so delicately," he said, sarcasm lacing his tone.

Clopin smirked and snorted softly in amusement. "As for a dowry, Esmeralda has her own cart, full of her own belongings. Djali will follow her, though his mother was mine, so she would bring him as well, and she's hardly going to leave her personal savings behind with me, even if you would have no need of them," he expounded. "No, Captain Phoebus. Esmeralda sent you to me to discuss her _bride price_."

"And that is, exactly?" Phoebus asked.

Clopin's smirk became sharp. "What you will pay to _me_ as recompense for loss of _her_," Clopin explained. "Esmeralda is not only all the family that I have, she also helps keep bread on the table with her dancing. I don't _really_ see her sharing her earnings with me _quite_ so liberally after she has her own family, do you? Since she came into my life, every coin one of us earned was shared by the other."

"Uh..." Phoebus hesitated, unsure.

Clopin snorted again in amusement. "Esmeralda is of great worth, Captain Phoebus," Clopin said simply, and folded his arms. "Think a moment. How much did your armour and sword cost you? How much does it cost you to keep your horse? How much good have they done for you in return?" he posited.

Phoebus opened his mouth, shut it again, and then proved he wasn't the brightest candle on the alter when he said "You're not asking for my sword, armour and horse in exchange for Esmeralda, are you?"

Clopin nearly struck _himself_ in the face. "If I _were_," he said, "would you give them to me?"

"I'd wonder what you'd do with the armour, since it wouldn't fit you," Phoebus answered. "But, for Esmeralda... yes, I would."

Clopin sighed. The man was something of an idiot, but Esmeralda loved him, for reasons _he_ certainly didn't understand. Still, he was getting somewhere. "And, as you have pointed out, your armour will not fit me, so I am more likely to ask for coin enough to buy as fine a set for myself should I wish it. At the same time, I have little use for a sword, so I am better off asking you for the value of the sword in coin. Your horse is trained to carry you as a rider. He knows you, and would probably not get along well with me. I have more use for a horse trained to carts than saddles."

Clopin paused to look at the soldier who was sitting there in his cart, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Do you see where I'm going with this?" Clopin asked.

Phoebus nodded. "I do," he agreed. "Is that the price you are asking?"

Clopin wanted to strike _him_ for his indelicacy in the fine art of haggling a bride price. Clopin had seen parents all around the Court of Miracles locked in this delicate exchange, and knew every nuance of the carefully made deal.

"Yes," he stated bluntly. "Esmeralda is worth more to me than a fine suit of armour, a reliable sword and an excellent horse, but there is only so much a person can quantify. If you hurt her though," he added in warning. "If you for _any_ reason, other than uncontainable happiness or the pain of childbirth, give her cause to cry, then I will _personally_ see to it that Frollo's intentions for _you_ are _realised_. Slowly and painfully, with a great deal of creative licence to make sure you don't die too quickly. Do I make myself clear?"

The blonde man nodded quickly. It was amazing how scary a man in a pink mask and a yellow-and-purple tunic with bells on could be.

"Good!" Clopin declared cheerfully.

Phoebus swallowed tensely. "And, uh, when would you expect to receive this sum?" he asked hesitantly.

"_Well_ before you get married," Clopin answered firmly, tone dry and brows arched behind his mask.

Phoebus nodded and reached for his coin purse. "The cost of a sword forged by a master blacksmith," he said, and counted out most of the coins he carried onto Clopin's small table. "I'll have to come back with the money to pay for full plate armour for an officer and a trained, pure-bred horse," he said, and stood. "It shouldn't take me more than an hour or so to fetch the sum," he announced solemnly.

"Then I will wait for you here," Clopin answered, carefully hiding his shock at the amount of money that this man _carried on him_. To say nothing of how much the sword at his hip apparently _cost_. Clopin wondered if the blacksmith had over-charged the soldier, since he was clearly well-moneyed, or if his sword was just genuinely _that valuable_.

As soon as Phoebus was out, had mounted his horse once more, and was off down the street, Clopin rushed to stash the coin in a secret compartment underneath his bed. It was where he kept the single glass bottle of fine wine he had – it had been a gift from a _very_ rich woman who had enjoyed his puppet show and his fine, boyish face, back before he had even met Esmeralda. She didn't know it was there. He'd just sank down on his seat when he heard Esmeralda calling his name from beyond the cart.

"Clopin!" she cried as she pounded up the steps in her bare feet and burst in through the door, all excitement, Djali on her heels. "Has Phoebus found you yet?" she asked.

Clopin nodded. "Oui, ma petite fille," he said as he sank backwards in his seat, suddenly feeling old and tired and exhausted. "He has been to see me."

"And?!" Esmeralda pressed.

Clopin raised an eyebrow at her from behind his mask. "And I suppose intellect, depth, and substance aren't _everything_ there is to a person," he drawled as he examined the seams of the tips of his gloves and the way they clung so elegantly to his fingers. "But he's handsome, if that's what you're fishing for."

"Clopin!"

"What do you want from me Esmeralda?" Clopin asked, seriously now. "We agreed on a bride price, which _you_ needn't concern yourself with. I threatened him with grievous bodily harm if he ever does anything to upset you. He will return soon with his coin."

"Clopin!" Esmeralda snapped. "Do we have your blessing?"

"My dear, do you need it?" Clopin asked with a wry twist of his lips.

Esmeralda huffed silently and placed her hands prominently on her hips. Even Djali was giving Clopin an 'are you serious?' glare.

When the silence stretched, Esmeralda broke it. "Please, Clopin?" she asked softly, hands suddenly clasped under her chin and her green eyes wide and hopeful and shining.

Djali pouted and blinked _his_ eyes too.

Clopin sighed and threw his arm over his face as though he were a tired man who did not want to face dawn and another day of work yet. "You _should_ be _too old_ to use those eyes on me," he scolded from his seat. "Do you love him?" he asked slowly, enunciating each word as he lowered his arm and looked her in the eye.

"Yes," Esmeralda answered.

"Are you sure that he loves you?" he continued.

"Absolutely," she replied with a smirk. "He came to see you, didn't he?"

Clopin rolled his eyes. "Does he make you happy?" he pressed, determined not to be diverted.

"He does," she said, a true, besotted smile lighting her entire face.

"Then you have my blessing," Clopin told her. "If you love him and he loves you, then what can I do but support you? And if he makes you happy besides? Well, that is all I have ever wanted for you."

Esmeralda grinned and threw herself at Clopin, hugging him tightly. "Thank you!" she whispered fiercely, and then she was running out of his wagon, that radiant smile on her face. It seemed that she was too happy to even stand still.

Clopin looked down at Djali. "I suppose _you_ have an opinion on the matter?" he asked the goat.

Djali trotted over to him, got up on his hind legs, licked Clopin's face, then dashed out after Esmeralda.


	6. Chapter 6

Clopin did a different puppet show the next morning. Not a _true_ story, as his tale of Quasimodo had been, but a fine tale all the same. Belle recognised the story from one of the books she'd read while living with her father in the village, before... the _incident_. Clopin was quite clever with the way he 'grew' the beanstalk for the story, and the children were all _very_ impressed.

Belle was glad she had gotten to see it before she and her father left for the castle. They were to set out as soon as they had shared breakfast and hitched up Phillippe.

"Did you enjoy the tale?" Clopin asked Belle when she descended from her window and approached his after the children had dispersed.

"I did," she agreed with a smile. "I read that story in a book once," she admitted. "But the way you told it... You give such _life_ to your performances," she praised with delight.

"I try," he said with a slight bow.

"Will you join us for breakfast again?" Belle asked hopefully.

Clopin took one of Belle's hands gently, and lay his other hand over the one of hers he had captured so lightly. "It would be a pleasure and an honour," he answered her.

"Papa and I leave Paris today," Belle said softly, eyes fixed on his gloved hands that held one of her own as though it were a captive butterfly.

"Ah," Clopin sighed sadly. "Everybody is leaving poor Trouillefou behind," he lamented. "First Frollo died, though I grant you, I shall not miss _him_. But yesterday the captain and Esmeralda decided that they would _marry_, and now _you_, Mademoiselle Leburinrusée, leave for your castle."

"You will still have Quasimodo," Belle offered in teasing comfort.

"Perhaps I should sequester myself away in the bell tower as he does," Clopin suggested with a melodramatic whisper. "For it seems I am so ugly that everybody runs away from _me_ as well, even when I wear this mask all the time," he added, and touched the edge of his mask for emphasis.

"You are not," Belle assured him, and reached up to cup his cheek. "With or _without_ the mask."

"Oh?" Clopin asked. "And when have _you_ seen me without my mask, Mademoiselle?" he queried with a sly smirk. "I am quite sure that I have never been without it in your presence."

Belle blushed. "Come in for breakfast," she insisted, and reclaimed her hands so that she could hurry ahead of him inside.

Curious and confused, Clopin quickly closed up his wagon and followed after her.

A simple breakfast was already laid out, and as they ate, Maurice questioned him on how he got the beanstalk of his morning's show to grow, and quizzed him on the style and method of the making of his cart – with scatterings of speculations through the conversation on how one technique or another might be useful when building his inventions.

"Well, time to hitch up Phillippe," Maurice decided as he got up from the table. "Belle?"

"I'll be right there Papa," she promised. "I..."

Maurice chuckled. "I'll leave you two kids to have a moment," he said fondly. "But know that I'll _hear_ most anything you say to each other. We don't exactly have thick walls between the kitchen and the yard."

Belle nodded her understanding. "Wait a moment?" she requested of Clopin as soon as the door closed behind her father.

Clopin nodded, unsure but willing to go along if it would satisfy a little of his curiosity.

Belle rushed out and up some stairs, then back down again with something wrapped in cloth held tightly against her chest. She _kept_ it pressed to her chest as she sat down at the table once more, then set it down and unwrapped it.

"A mirror?" Clopin asked, now _truly_ confused.

Belle nodded and took it by the handle. "I would like to see my father, please," she said to the mirror. It grew bright and with a flash the surface of the mirror no longer reflected her face. She turned it so that Clopin could see.

Gingerly, he took it from her hold as he stared, entranced, at the perfectly normal sight of Maurice hitching a wagon to a horse. He looked up to Belle. "Do you think it could show me _my_ father?" he asked.

Before Belle could answer, the mirror's surface flashed brightly once again, and reflected back a patch of earth, weeds coming up between the blades of grass.

Clopin's eyes stung, and he could not tear his gaze away from that sight. A patch of earth with weeds growing through it. As a child, he hadn't known which was worse: the possibility that his father was dead – he had not _seen_ his father's execution after all – or the possibility that he suffered in the dungeons of the Palace of Justice. Now... it seemed that whatever _had_ been his father's fate when Frollo had caught him, _now_ his parents were together in heaven.

Belle had hurried around the table to sit at Clopin's side as soon as she had seen his eyes go glassy with un-shed tears. When she'd seen what he could not tear his eyes away from, she wrapped an arm around his back and gently took the mirror from his hands. She set it face down on the table, and gently pulled Clopin to her until his face rested against her collar.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to him.

"You were not the one that killed him," Clopin answered, his voice harsh with choked sobs. "I am actually glad, because now I _know_ that he is no longer suffering at Frollo's hands. Before, I could only _hope_."

Belle nodded her understanding, but continued to rub her hand up and down his back as she held him to her, offering what comfort she could.

"So, this mirror is how you have seen me without my mask?" Clopin asked after a few more moments of getting his tears back under control.

"Oui," Belle answered, and a blush rose across her cheeks.

Clopin straightened once more in his seat at her side, and noticed the blush. "Should I ask what _else_ you have seen me without thanks to this little mirror?" he asked softly.

Belle bit her lip. "Non," she eventually answered, just as softly, as she shook her head slightly and found that she suddenly _could not_ meet his eyes as the glow of her cheeks darkened further.

Clopin smirked. "Will you be taking this mirror _with_ you when you go?" he asked.

"Non," Belle answered again, and shook her head more firmly. "It will stay in my room."

Clopin chuckled.

Belle smiled back, then quickly wrapped up the mirror and hurried to return it to her room. "I will miss you while I'm gone," she admitted to Clopin when she returned to the kitchen.

Clopin removed his hat and his mask, and set them on the table, leaving his face and his receding hairline completely on display for Belle as she stood there before him. Actually, he blamed Esmeralda for that. Much as he loved her, the stunts she'd pulled at the most recent Feast of Fools had _definitely_ been the cause of the large amounts of his hair come out when he'd run a brush through it the next morning.

Gently, Clopin took Belle's right hand in both of his as he stood from his seat. Bending slightly, he tenderly pressed his lips to her fingers, just passed the knuckles so that his nose rested on the back of her hand and he could breath in the scent of her skin.

"Clopin..."

"Belle?" Maurice called from the yard.

Clopin whipped his hat and mask back on before the man re-joined them in the kitchen. "You said you wanted to say goodbye to the bell ringer before we left as well, didn't you?" he asked.

Belle nodded. "Y-yes, Papa," she agreed. "Quasimodo doesn't have many friends, and I'd feel bad if I left without telling him."

"Then I'll meet you at the north gate," he told her. "Just don't be too long."

"I won't Papa," Belle promised, and turned to Clopin when her father left back to Phillippe and the cart. "Will you walk with me to the cathedral?" she asked.

"It might perhaps be better for you if I did not," Clopin answered her, a little sadly. "My people are more accepted than they were a few days ago, but..."

Belle nodded in saddened understanding and resigned acceptance.

~oOo~

Clopin wandered the horse market after he left Belle's company. He _did_ want an animal to pull his cart, but he wasn't sure... well, a goat had been enough before, and had provided milk besides. A horse would be more expensive, he was sure, even the ones lined up to be slaughtered because they were no good to anybody any more would cost more than a goat.

Clopin blinked in surprise as his eyes lit on one _particular_ horse that was tied up for sale as meat rather than as an animal to ride or pull a cart.

_Frollo's horse_.

"Monsieur," Clopin said to the gentleman who was in charge of the sale of the animals. "Why is _Frollo's_ horse for sale as meat? It is a fine-looking animal," he enquired.

The man shrugged. "Frollo's horse is probably as mean as the man himself was. No one wants to try," he said, and grunted with dissatisfaction. "Even the butchers are passing the animal over for fear that being Frollo's will have made the meat taste bad."

"How much for the beast?" Clopin enquired, a thought teasing his mind. Frollo's horse put to pull the cart of a gypsy. The idea was nearly delicious with irony.

"It's a loss to me," the man said. "You may _have_ it, if you only take it from my stables."

Clopin smiled brightly and pranced towards the animal happily.

Gently, he stroked the great horse's jaw as he untied the rope that had held the animal. "There now," he cooed softly. "You are not as mean as your last master was, are you?" he asked it, and he _was_ genuinely curious to learn the answer to that. "It is all just sad prejudice, isn't it? You're a _beautiful_ animal, and you're going to come with me," he informed the creature, and with a tug on the rope that was hung about the horse's neck, he led it away to his cart.

Along the way, he spent a few coins on apples. They would suit him well for his lunch, and do an excellent double duty as bribes to the horse that was now his. After all, though Frollo _had_ had a carriage, Clopin was fairly sure that it had been one of the guard's horses that it got hitched to, not this magnificent animal.

The horse _immediately_ nosed the bag that Clopin had put the apples in hopefully.

Clopin laughed, shook his head, and continued on his way back to his cart. He quickly learned – to his pleasure – that the horse really was a more gentle, patient, _docile_ animal than reputation had suggested.

"Hmm," Clopin mused as he hitched the animal to his cart. "I wonder what Frollo _called_ you," he commented to the horse. "No matter really," he decided. A quick check as he made sure of the harness and he was assured that he had a mare, rather than a stallion or gelding. "I will call you Rochelle," he decided, and cut her a slice of apple.

"You bought _Frollo's horse_?" Esmeralda demanded incredulously from behind him.

Clopin turned. "She was _given away_ to me, in point of fact," he answered her with a crooked smirk as he rested against the horse that was now _his_. "Frollo's reputation stuck to her, but all to my benefit."

"Are you going somewhere?" Esmeralda asked as she hesitantly approached the large, somewhat intimidating animal. Genuinely gentle disposition or not, there was a lot of fear that went hand-in-hand with seeing _this horse_ coming down a Paris street.

"Yes," Clopin answered simply. "You told me to go after her, did you not?" Clopin quipped with a slight smile. "Your bride price is settled and paid, you may marry your captain whenever you like, so I do not have to dally for your sake."

Esmeralda grinned in delight and threw herself at Clopin.

He laughed with her as he swung her around so that he wouldn't fall from her momentum, and set her back on her feet easily.

"Go!" Esmeralda cheered for him softly and kissed one cheek then the other where they appeared beneath his mask. "Go and win the heart of your Belle!"

Clopin laughed. "I have _your_ blessing, then?" he teased.

Esmeralda shook her head fondly. "You _know_ you do," she answered with a smile.

Clopin nodded and looked down at Djali. "You're the chaperone while I'm gone," he informed the goat. "You make sure that the captain does nothing that is _untoward_ before the wedding."

Djali bleated happily and pranced around Esmeralda's feet.

"And say goodbye to Quasimodo from me?" he requested of Esmeralda.

She nodded, hugged him once more, then let him climb up onto his cart. "I'll walk with you to the gate," she insisted.

~oOo~

Quasimodo had offered to escort Belle to the north gate where her father was waiting for her, and to her delight, that meant she hung from his shoulders as he swung between the eaves of the buildings between the cathedral and where Maurice waited for her. If her delighted shrieks of laughter echoed and drew attention to them as they travelled, well, they only elicited smiles of amusement from the people on the street.

"Thank you Quasimodo," Belle said happily when the boy landed and gently set her on her feet on the street. "That was fun."

"My pleasure," Quasimodo answered with a smile.

"Quasimodo!"

Belle and Quasimodo looked up in surprise.

"Esmeralda!" Quasimodo called back, and raised a hand to wave to her. "What are you doing all the way out here?" he asked.

"I could ask the same thing about you," Esmeralda answered with a chuckle. "Hello Belle," she greeted the other woman, and wrapped her arms around her.

"Esmeralda," Belle answered as she returned the embrace. "Hello Djali," she added when Esmeralda released her, and bent to pat the kid on the head.

Djali bleated his own greeting.

"Belle is leaving Paris for a while," Quasimodo explained to Esmeralda, "and visited me at Notre Dame to say goodbye. I escorted her from the cathedral to here."

"Across the rooftops!" Belle added happily.

Esmeralda laughed. "That _is_ quite an exciting ride," she agreed. "Clopin is leaving Paris as well," she added with a gesture to the cart she'd been walking along side of.

"Quasimodo, I am glad to see you my friend," Clopin said, and leapt down from his cart. "I may convey may farewell to you myself, rather than needing Esmeralda to say it for me."

"Clopin," Quasimodo greeted with a smile, then frowned. "You're leaving Paris too?"

Clopin nodded. "January isn't _usually_ the time to travel, but when a gypsy feels that he cannot stay within a city any longer, then he must obey the urge," he explained. Then he chuckled. "If the weather is very bad, it will drive him back soon enough," he added with a wink.

Quasimodo chuckled, and Belle tugged Esmeralda away to properly meet her father. They hadn't exactly had much opportunity for that yet after all.

"Well," Clopin said, "if he does not find somewhere else to find shelter until the roads call him again," he added with a wistful look in Belle's direction.

Quasimodo looked from Clopin to Belle and back, then smiled to himself. "Maurice is a carpenter, you know?" he commented. "I myself made a hobby of carving when I wasn't tending to my chores and duties to the bells."

Clopin looked down at Quasimodo. "Are you _getting_ at something, my friend?" he asked archly.

Quasimodo hummed and looked over Clopin's cart. "Will that be big enough for _two_ people?" he asked, ostensibly ignoring Clopin's query. "You may have to have a new one made to fit comfortably. Of course, Maurice is getting on a bit now, so he probably doesn't have the hands or the eyes for delicate work any more."

"You _are_ getting at something," Clopin noted wryly.

Quasimodo chuckled. "Making a new cart together might be a good way for you to _bond_ with your future father-in-law," Quasimodo joked, "and I'd be pleased to help with the carving when you return to Paris."

"Merci, mon ami," Clopin said softly.

"Of course, if you _hurt_ Belle," Quasimodo continued in that same pleasant tone, "then I will simply have to discover how you would perform as a clapper in one of the bells."

Clopin laughed happily and clapped Quasimodo on the back. "You know, I said something very similar to the captain when he came to me asking permission to marry la Esmeralda," he commented.

Quasimodo chuckled. "I promised to tie _him_ to the roof of Notre Dame, in full armour, where the pigeons like to nest," he supplied quietly. "And to leave him there for a week."

Clopin joined in the soft laughter. "Between your threats and mine, the captain won't _dare_ upset Esmeralda."

Quasimodo smirked. "Just so long as you don't forget that there's a threat waiting for _you_ if you ever upset Belle," he said.

Clopin nodded. "I've got to win her heart first," he pointed out.

Quasimodo nodded in acceptance.

"Monsieur Trouillefou," Belle called as she returned to where Clopin and Quasimodo had stood by his cart while she and Esmeralda talked with her father. "Esmeralda tells me that you are leaving Paris as well?"

"Does she really?" Clopin asked archly. "She is lucky she it too big now to place over my knee for telling secrets."

Esmeralda laughed. "I didn't know it was a secret," she said. "You weren't exactly being _subtle_," she pointed out with a wave towards Clopin's cart and horse.

"True," Clopin allowed.

"Are you travelling with a particular destination in mind?" Belle asked.

Clopin shook his head. "If you would not object, Mademoiselle, I would like to see the castle you told me of," he suggested.

Belle smiled. "Papa and I would be glad to have your company," she said. "Wouldn't we, Papa?" she called over her shoulder.

"Hmm? What?" Maurice asked.

"We would be happy to have Monsieur Trouillefou travel with us," Belle repeated.

"Oh certainly!" Maurice agreed. "And, Belle, speaking of travelling?" he prompted.

Belle nodded and bid a last farewell to Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Djali, then climbed up onto the cart beside her father.

"Bon voyage!" Quasimodo and Esmeralda called after them as first Belle and Maurice, then Clopin, rolled out of the city's north gate.


	7. Chapter 7

It was a day's journey from Paris to the village, from which point it would be another day's journey to the castle in present weather and with wagons drawn behind the horses. The countryside was covered in snow. Some of it wet, some dry, some deep and some shallow, but _all_ of it slippery where it encroached upon the roads.

"Ah, the open road," Clopin declaimed theatrically when Maurice had pulled Phillippe over to the side of the road to stop for lunch, and he followed. "The countryside of France, so picturesque we see it, covered in a blanket of snow. _Just_ what a man needs after being next in line to be _burned alive_. My skin only _now_ is not drawn tight by the heat of the fires of Paris."

Belle and Maurice laughed, as he had meant for them to.

"But fear not! I shall soon be disenchanted, I am sure, when I can no longer feel my fingers on the ends of my hands and fear that they are turning _blue_ beneath my gloves where I will not see," Clopin continued.

"It would be a terrible thing if you turned blue," Maurice commiserated. "It would not go with your brightly coloured tunic or mask at all. Perhaps you had better ride with Monsieur Trouillefou the rest of the way to the village," Maurice commented to Belle.

"Certainly Papa," Belle agreed with a smile and a chuckle, and obligingly climbed up beside Clopin when they had shared their lunch and were ready to get back on their way again. Before she sat, she unpinned her cloak from around her neck and draped it around Clopin's shoulders. She wrapped the other half of the cloak she hadn't given him around herself, and snuggled in close to share warmth between them.

"Will you tell me about your castle, Mademoiselle?" Clopin asked as he urged Renée on to follow after Phillippe.

"What would you like to know? You will see it tomorrow," Belle answered softly.

Clopin smiled down at her. "The Court of Miracles had streets of caravans, and a sort of town square all of its own where a permanent gallows was erected to execute any trespassers or spies who actually managed to find us," he offered.

Belle rested her head against Clopin's shoulder. "The castle has a library as spectacular as Notre Dame, and a ballroom as large as the square before the cathedral where the Feast of Fools was held," she answered, accepting the 'game' of trading details for details.

"Every cart has to be brought in through the catacombs or be built within the Court of Miracles itself. There are many ways to reach it, but only _one_ that is large enough for carts to go in and out through," Clopin said. "And then the smell of the catacombs _sticks_ to the cart for _months_ after," he complained.

Belle giggled. "Your cart doesn't smell of catacombs," she pointed out.

"Well, I haven't _kept_ it in the catacombs since I could afford for it to be built," Clopin explained easily. "Much as the Court of Miracles is a safe haven to any gypsy, it is not what a person would call _ventilated_," he joked.

Belle giggle again. "Nearly every window at the castle is as high as the ceiling, and there are balconies all around it, so that there will always be somewhere to sit in the sun and admire the view of the surrounding lands, whatever the weather may be," she countered with a smile. "I have only seen the castle in the winter, but the views were _still_ beautiful."

"Brightly coloured fabrics were draped and hung all around the Court of Miracles to hide the stone walls and make the catacombs look and feel warmer. These fabrics got used for tents at festivals, and when they tore then they were turned into clothing, and when the clothes tore then they were used for trim or to patch holes."

"The castle has draperies, and a team of seamstresses and tailors _both_ on permanent retainer to keep everybody clothed and looking their best at all times."

And so the back-and-forth continued until they reached the village, and that just as the sun was about to dip below the horizon. Thankfully, they still owned the house on the outskirts of the village, and even more thankfully, none of the people from the village had _done anything_ to it.

"We have a guest room, and there is plenty of firewood left from when we lived here," Maurice offered to Clopin as he helped Belle down from the gypsy's cart. "And your horse is certainly welcome to share Phillippe's stable and the feed that should still be here as well."

"Merci Monsieur Leburinrusée," Clopin said and bowed his head. "But my wagon will be warm enough for me as soon as I get a fire going in the stove, and I should not like to impose _too_ much upon your hospitality."

Maurice chuckled. "Well, help yourself to firewood, and whatever feed we have for your horse, at least," he insisted lightly with a gesture towards the basement where the wood was stored and the shed where there were, indeed, still a few barrels of feed and a bale of hay that looked to be unaffected by the weather.

They'd kept a few goats and some chickens around the place before they'd left, but had seen them moved to the castle for care before leaving for Paris. Still, the house was in generally good shape, and... _somewhat_ stocked.

Maurice saw to fetching firewood into the house and starting a fire to keep them warm through the night – as well as airing the beds – while Belle tended to Phillippe after the long day of travel, and Clopin along side of her tending to Renée.

~oOo~

"Tell me about this village?" Clopin asked as he helped her up onto the front of his cart for the new day's travel. Since Maurice had only _found_ the castle in the first place by getting _lost_, Belle would be the one guiding them to it that day. But she would do so from Clopin's cart.

"It's a little town, just a quiet village, where every day is like the one before," Belle answered as she urged Renée across the bridge and onto the main, indeed the _only_ street. "A little town, full of _little_ people," she continued, then smiled a little as she pressed a finger to Clopin's lips, "waking up to say..."

"Bonjour!" once voice after another rang out around them.

"Here comes the baker with his tray, like always, the same old bread and rolls to sell," Belle said, and pointed him out. "Morning here is still the same as the morning we first came to this poor provincial town."

"Good morning Belle," the baker greeted as the cart drew level with him. Then he did a double-take. "Belle! What are you doing back here?" he asked, though he didn't seem to notice her travelling companion.

"Just passing through on the way to the castle," she answered. "May I have three rolls please?" she asked, and produced a single gold coin as she did so.

The baker nodded, and held up his tray for her to pick which rolls she wanted.

Belle passed them all over to Clopin – who in turn took them into his cart so that he would not have them on his lap – and set the coin down on the corner of the tray, then urged Renée onward a while. She pulled her to a stop again in front of a door just before a woman with a large basket of apples came out through it.

"Belle!" the woman greeted in surprise.

"Bonjour Madame Arbre," Belle greeted. "May I have six apples please?" she requested, and again held out a coin for the exchange.

"Oui, of course," the woman answered, and raised her basket to Belle so that she could pick out which ones she liked.

Again, Belle passed her selections onto Clopin as she chose them, then paid the woman before she urged the horse onwards – and finally out of the small town.

"Mademoiselle, that was..."

"Disturbing?" Belle suggested lightly, a small smile on her face. "Do not think on it beyond that we have fresh food for the day's journey," she suggested.

Clopin nodded his acceptance, and they resumed their game of the day before, but exchanging details of the _people_ now, rather than describing the castle or the Court of Miracles.

"This road is not a pleasant prospect," Clopin declared softly as Belle turned the cart down the less appealing of two roads when they had returned to the carts after a quick stop for lunch with Maurice.

"It isn't," Belle agreed with a sigh. "But at least the wolves are gone now," she added softly. A couple had died the day she had run from the Beast in fear, and another when he came after her, but she had requested – when the curse was lifted – that the area be kept clear of wolves entirely. The same day, Cogsworth had organised a small hunting party to go after the animals.

"The Mistress has returned!" cried a happy voice from the castle's front door, and a figure came running down the steps.

Belle quickly handed Clopin the reigns and prepared herself to be me enthusiastically when she recognised just _who_ it was who was coming to welcome her.

He barely noticed, he was staring it awe up at the castle.

"Lumiere," Belle greeted with a smile as he lifted her bodily down from the cart. "How are you?"

"I have told you, Mademoiselle," he said seriously as he set her down. "Life can be _so_ unnerving for a servant who is not serving."

Belle nodded. She remembered. "Well, Papa is here to stay," she said with a wave back to where her father was drawing Phillippe to a halt. "So that he may work on his inventions where I _know_ he will be well cared for."

"You can count on us," Lumiere said with a salute and a smile.

"And this other gentleman with us is Monsieur Clopin Trouillefou," Belle continued, and the sound of his name drew his attention away from the architecture at last. "He is an honoured guest," she added in a softly pointed voice.

"Of course, of course!" Lumiere agreed with a light chuckle and a wide grin. "Ah, it is so _wonderful_ to have not _only_ the Mistress returned, but _guests_ as well!" he declared, and then there was a flood of servants coming through the doors to help Maurice unpack his cart, to take Phillippe off to the stables, and more to take not only Renée, but also Clopin's cart away for him.

The man was rather unceremoniously urged off his _own_ cart, but he was still too awed to be much offended as he joined Belle where she stood with her father, and Lumiere.

"Apologies Monsieur," Lumiere said with a chuckle. "We have not had guests since the Mistress left us, and before her... not for _some time_. You will be treated as a prince for as long as you stay."

"Is that why I find myself suddenly being attacked with a tape measure?" Clopin asked as his left arm was suddenly jerked up by powers not his own.

Lumiere laughed. "Oui," he agreed. "You shall have ten new items for your wardrobe by dinner time, whether you need them or not."

"And regardless of whether or not I have anywhere to keep them in my wagon?" Clopin enquired.

"Oh, Monsieur, if such is the case then _we_ shall keep them until you visit us again," Lumiere answered with an easy smile as he waved off the concern.

"You mentioned _dinner_, Lumiere?" Belle asked.

"Of course Mistress!" Lumiere agreed.

"Then you should _get to it_," Cogsworth said pointedly as he came down the steps, "and let the Mistress come in out of the cold."

"Hello Cogsworth," Belle greeted.

"My lady," he deferred with a bow to her. "Monsieur Maurice," he added with a slighter bow to the old man. Then his eyes lit on Clopin, and he looked back at Belle with a raised eyebrow.

Belle lifted one of her own in answer.

Lumiere whispered in Cogsworth's ear before he hurried off into the castle.

"Honoured guest," Cogsworth said, and bowed slightly again to Clopin. "Please, allow me to show you all to your rooms?" he requested politely.

"Thank you Cogsworth," Belle said with a smile.

~oOo~

Clopin _did_ have a new wardrobe at his disposal come dinner time, even _wore_ some of it down for the meal, and left his mask behind in his room – though he had worn it throughout the day's ride through the village and beyond, just as he had worn it the previous day since leaving Paris.

Maurice didn't recognise him when he joined them for dinner. At least, not until Belle greeted him.

"Clopin," she welcomed with a smile. "How do you like the room Cogsworth gave you?"

"It is extravagant," Clopin answered, and was only able to due to much practice at keeping his head when shocked by beautiful things. Esmeralda regularly shocked him with her latest dress for festival performances after all.

Belle, vision of loveliness that she was, laughed softly. "This is a castle," she pointed out. "Nearly _everything_ is extravagant."

"And speaking of extravagance!" Lumiere announced. "The dining room _proudly_ presents your dinner," he declared, and two servants rolled in trolleys with covered dishes, while a third carried in a bucket of ice with a bottle of wine resting, nestled, among the cubes.

"I've spoken with Cogsworth, Papa," Belle said once the meal was served. "He has _just_ the place for your new workshop. Chip will show you where it is after breakfast tomorrow."

"Thank you Belle," Maurice answered with a smile. "It will be good to see the lad again."

"Monsieur Clopin, the castle is completely open to your explorations, no door will be closed to you," Belle continued. "I've cleared _that_ with Cogsworth as well."

Clopin smiled. "Merci, Mademoiselle," he answered. "But what will _you_ be doing?" he enquired.

Belle sighed. "There are matters of the castle and grounds that Cogsworth wishes to discuss with me," she explained. "It... could take a while," she admitted. "But if you wish to find me at any time, any servant in the castle can direct you to the library."

Maurice chuckled. "You doing work in the library guarantees that it will take _longer_, Belle," he teased. "You will notice a title out of the corner of your eye, ask poor Cogsworth if you can finish discussing whatever matter is at hand at a later time, and then you will settle in for the rest of the day with whatever book it is. And the next day will be the same."

Belle blushed, but did not deny the accusation. "All of Cogsworth's concerns _will_ be addressed before I leave," she said resolutely. "Even if that means a slightly longer stay than originally intended," she added more quietly.

~oOo~

The bed was large, comfortable, and covered in the softest sheets... but it didn't smell like _his_ bed, which was his excuse for not falling straight to sleep when he returned to his rooms and settled onto the mattress. Still, it being large, comfortable, done up with the softest sheets he had ever known, and _warm_ besides, were all perfectly good reasons for him to rouse slowly the next morning.

There was a knock on his door not long after he woke.

"Come in," Clopin called.

It was Lumiere, the man who had welcomed them the previous evening and served them dinner with such theatre.

"Good morning Monsieur," Lumiere greeted with a smile.

"Good morning," Clopin returned. "Am I being summoned to breakfast?" he enquired.

Lumiere chuckled. "Oh, that will be served soon enough," he agreed. "Did you sleep well?" he asked as he moved towards the wardrobe.

"I did, thank you."

"Good, good. Ah, here we are," he declared as he withdrew certain items from the wardrobe. "I do not know what you intend to do with your day about the castle Monsieur, but I think these should serve well, no? And flatter your figure as well," he added with a sly smirk. "You want to look your best for the Mistress, after all."

"I would like to look like _myself_," Clopin countered half-heartedly, but rose from the bed and accepted the clothes that Lumiere had chosen for him all the same. They were not as flouncy as Lumiere's own attire, and not as brightly coloured as the tunic he had arrived in yesterday, but more fine-looking, modest sorts of things like he had worn to dinner the previous night – except, of course, that these were clothes for the morning, and not the evening. "I feel like I should be off to a festival, to perform, in such fine things," Clopin said when he emerged, dressed for the day.

"Mrs Potts suggested that you might _feel_ less out of place in the castle if you _looked_ less out of place," Lumiere explained with a smile. "Besides, the tailors have made it all already, so you might as well wear them around a bit!"

Breakfast was porridge, a fairly standard fare, but with the options of milk, sugar, honey and even _cinnamon_ to be added to it to improve the taste.

"Mistress," Cogsworth called softly when they'd finished eating.

"Yes Cogsworth," Belle answered him. "I haven't forgotten. Where's Chip?" she asked.

"Here!" answered a little blonde boy enthusiastically as he appeared form behind the slightly rotund form of Cogsworth. "Hi Belle! Hi Maurice!" the boy greeted.

"Hello Chip," Belle and Maurice both greeted.

"Hello Monsieur Guest," Chip added to Clopin.

Clopin smiled. "Bonjour Monsieur Chip," he answered happily. "Please call me Clopin. What are _you_ going to do today?"

"I'm gonna show Maurice where he can set up his workshop!" Chip answered happily. "I got to ride on one of his inventions once. It was _great_!"

The adults around the table all laughed in reflected joy.

"Will you come too?" Chip asked Clopin.

"If I would not be in the way," he said, and looked up to Maurice for confirmation on that matter.

The man shook his head with a smile.

"Then I would be delighted," Clopin agreed with a smile of his own.

"Yay!" Chip cheered, and proceeded to drag Maurice and Clopin from their chairs and out of the dining room.

"How _does_ Mrs Potts keep up with that boy?" Belle asked Cogsworth softly as she watched the trio leave, a fond smile on her face.

"Well, he's determined to be helpful rather than a nuisance, and actually knows _how_ to be helpful, which helps," Cogsworth answered drolly, a small smile tugging at his own lips. "To the library?" he suggested.

Belle nodded and rose from her seat. "To the library," she agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

"Monsieur Clopin, are you _in love_ with Belle?" Chip asked as they left the main castle building – Maurice's workshop would be just across the grounds a little ways, since his inventions sometimes blew up.

"Yes, Monsieur Clopin," Maurice echoed as they walked. "_Are_ you in love with Belle?"

Clopin smiled nervously. "Before I answer that, can I ask why _you_ are asking?" he enquired hopefully.

Chip shrugged. "I saw you through the windows when you got here," he said. "You and Belle were sitting _really _close together," he explained.

Clopin looked to Maurice.

"I have eyes," the father answered with a small smile beneath his bushy moustache. "And ears. However much I pretend not to use them sometimes."

Clopin sighed. "Oui," he said, and it was an admission. "Yes, I love and am in love with Belle," he told them both softly, and looked back over his shoulder at the castle. "And I am completely unworthy of her."

"Well, you let _her_ decide that," Maurice advised. "But supposing you propose to her, and she accepts you, what then?" he asked, and resumed the trek across the grounds.

"I..." Clopin hesitated.

"They get married and live happily ever after in the castle!" Chip declared happily.

"Oh, Monsieur Chip, it is not so easy," Clopin informed the boy, and hefted him up onto his hip. "I am a gypsy, you see, and we do not do well inside stone walls."

"What's that mean?" Chip asked.

"It means that the prospect of a life where he cannot move about freely at a moment's notice makes him itch underneath his skin where he cannot scratch, but the itch goes away when he's out on the open road, travelling at his leisure," Maurice explained to the boy.

"Huh. Well, here's the workshop!" Chip declared, and with a flourish he opened the door of the building he'd led them to. "All yours!"

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Maurice praised. "Chip, would you ask someone to bring Monsieur Trouillefou's cart and mine here? I have an idea, but I will need to study how the carts are different to each other before I get started."

Chip nodded and dashed out. Then he poked his head back around the door. "You won't go anywhere until I get back, will you?" he asked.

Maurice and Clopin chuckled.

"We'll be right here," Maurice promised the boy. "Esmeralda is marrying the captain," he said to Clopin once Chip was gone.

"And she will be taking Djali and her cart with her into that marriage," Clopin answered. "She will still have all of Paris to move about in as she likes. I expect they will spend the first _week_ of their marriage in that cart, at least."

Maurice nodded his acceptance, and looked at Clopin in a considering fashion. "Then you're going to need a bigger cart," he decided. "You can consider it Belle's dowry," he added firmly. "I suspect she thinks I didn't hear her say she'd like to travel, when we were discussing what she might do while I remained here, but I did. I just didn't like the idea of her _alone_ on the open road."

"What can I offer for bride price?" Clopin asked softly. "It is the way of things among our people. I would not wish to dishonour her by _not_ paying one."

Maurice considered that, and hummed in thought as he rubbed his chin. "You can help with the new cart," he started, "and I'll keep your old one when you move into the bigger one." The old man chuckled. "A symbolic farewell to your single life at the same time, eh?"

Clopin laughed happily. "Oui," he agreed. "Most appropriate. But I must still learn the lady's heart on the matter."

"Well, leave that for later," Maurice insisted. "You have to help me design a gypsy wagon for two right now. A project that I think I will enjoy very much, even if it isn't _inventing_, as such."

Clopin laughed, happily, and sat down with Maurice at a workbench.

~oOo~

"Bonsoir, Mademoiselle," Clopin said with a smile as he looked down at the woman curled up in a large, plush chair in front of a fireplace, a book in her lap.

Belle looked up, surprised at the interruption. "Oh, Clopin, bonsoir. Wait, evening?" she asked, and turned in her chair to look out the window. "So it is," she noted softly.

Clopin chuckled. "An involving tale?" he suggested archly.

"It is," Belle agreed with a smile as she set a bookmark in place, closed the book, and held it tightly to her chest.

"Perhaps you would help me to read it some time? For now, Monsieur Chip says that it is time for dinner," Clopin said, and offered his hand to help her out of her chair. "I'm sure you _must_ be hungry by now."

Belle chuckled. "Yes," she agreed as she took his hand and let him pull her up. "I suppose I am. Um..." she hesitated. "Clopin, you said... _help_ you to read it..."

Clopin nodded and hummed an affirmation as he wound her arm around his as he walked with her to the door of the library. "I can read a little," he said, "but it is not exactly a talent that is _common_ among my people, or indeed _anybody_ not of a certain social standing," he pointed out.

Belle blushed a little. "My mother was raised in the cloisters of Notre Dame, and learned from the nuns there. She met my father not long before she was to have taken her vows to the church. She taught me," she explained.

Clopin smiled. "It is not something to blush over," he chided gently. "It is a wonderful thing. I learned the few written words that _I_ know from the Archdeacon while he tended to my mother's last rights."

Belle leant her head against Clopin's shoulder as they walked, offering what comfort she could for the less-than-happy memory. "How did you learn so many stories if you could not read them from books?" she asked.

Clopin chuckled. "By hearing them told," he answered easily. "Just as the children who watch my puppet shows will remember them, and be able to pass on the tales to their children some day."

Belle smiled happily, but didn't shift her head from where it rested on Clopin's shoulder until they reached the dining room.

"Ah, there's my daughter!" Maurice welcomed happily, and held out his arms for a hug.

"Papa," Belle greeted, and moved to his arms. "How was your day?" she asked. "I see you've been busy," she added, and picked a small bit of wood-chip from his hair behind his ear.

"Oh, I thought I'd cleaned it all off when I got changed for dinner," Maurice said as he looked at the tiny bit of wood in surprise. "Yes, yes, I've already got a project started. Monsieur Trouillefou and Chip are both helping me with it even."

"Really?" Belle asked, and looked over at Clopin with a smile.

Clopin shrugged, and pulled out Belle's chair for her with a sheepish smile on his face. "I held things steady, and Monsieur Chip fetched tools," he supplied in answer to Belle's enquiring gaze as she sat, then took his own seat.

"How much did you get through with Cogsworth today?" Maurice asked as he sat also.

"Not enough," Belle answered sheepishly. "It went just as you said Papa. We got through a couple of matters, but..."

Maurice chuckled fondly. "The books were all begging you to read them," he finished for her. "I suppose you'll be back to the library to go over a few more matters tomorrow then?"  
Belle nodded. "I hope Cogsworth wasn't offended..." she said quietly.

"He wasn't," Lumiere assured as he served their meal to them. "Pardon my intrusion," he added. "I could not help overhearing. Cogsworth is _used_ to the servants simply walking out on him without a word, and the Master would roar at him quite loudly when he was out of patience."

"Thank you Lumiere," Belle said. "Oh, and this smells _delicious_," she complimented happily.

"Merci," Lumiere said with a bow.

Rather than retiring immediately after dinner as they had done the day before, when they had arrived cold and tired from a day on the road, they adjourned to a cosy room with a large fireplace, a thick rug before it, and several soft chairs surrounding.

Maurice happily settled into one of the chairs, a blanket over his knees, and a cup of tea supplied to him by Mrs Potts in his hand.

Belle and Clopin settled down on the rug in front of the fireplace instead, and quietly she read to him, trailing her fingertip along under each word as she said it, so that he could recognise it written down. A little way in, Clopin took over the spoken parts for certain characters in the tale, much to Belle's amusement.

He did _voices_ very well, but then, he _was_ a puppeteer, among other things.

~oOo~

"Well would you look at that," Lumiere commented to Fifi, his sweetheart and one of the maids, who he had wrapped up in his arms as they peeked through the door into the room beyond.

"It looks familiar," she answered with a smirk. "Only, I am certain that the Mistress was wearing a _rose-coloured_ dress when she read by the fire with the Master, not a _lavender_ one."

Lumiere chuckled. "Indeed, ma chérie," he agreed. "Indeed."

"Monsieur Trouillefou is making the Mistress laugh in a way that the Master never did when they were in the same position," Cogsworth offered with a small smirk of his own as he, too, peeked around the edges of the doors.

"Well, Maurice is right there," Mrs Potts pointed out softly. "People act differently when they _know_ they have a chaperone."

"He's in love with her," Chip stated. "I asked him."

All the adults stared down at the boy in surprise, then looked up and around at each other.

"Well... I suppose Fifi or I should talk to the young lady when she retires for the night?" Mrs Potts suggested softly.

"I will go," Fifi offered.

Lumiere pouted a little, then sighed. "Ah, I will simply have to wait up for you, ma chérie," he declared and drew one of her hands to his lips to kiss.

"You will," Fifi answered saucily. "And _no_ going crawling to Angelique either," she added. "I intend to recruit _her_ for the evening's conversation as well."  
"Oh?" Mrs Potts asked, curious.

Fifi nodded. "Oui. A little chit-chat among young women about handsome men and romance," she explained, then tapped her chin in thought. "Mrs Potts, would you join us as well? You will have a more mature perspective on the situation."

Mrs Potts chuckled. "You mean the perspective of a woman who is actually _married_ and a mother?" she teased.

Fifi raised an eyebrow at Lumiere over her shoulder. "Oui," she agreed firmly.

Lumiere's smile became slightly nervous.

Fifi nodded in satisfaction, untangled herself from Lumiere, took Mrs Potts' arm, and went in search of the woman in charge of the castle's décor. Angelique wanted to talk about a few _other_ things with the Mistress anyway.

~oOo~

Belle was accosted at her bedroom door by a beaming Fifi, a smirking Angelique, and a Mrs Potts who looked like she wanted to laugh, just a little bit.

"Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Belle asked as she opened her door and invited all three of them into her room.

"Your staff are _terribly_ nosy," Angelique informed Belle with a superior tone as she swept in. "And gossipers," she added.

"Oh?" Belle asked with a smile forming on her own face.

"Mistress, we could hardly _help_ but notice how close you are with Monsieur Trouillefou," Mrs Potts pointed out to her as she commandeered the vanity seat.

A little extra colour rose in Belle's cheeks.

"Ah-_ha_!" Fifi declared with a grin as she pointed at Belle's face. "She blushes at his name!"

Belle gasped out a soft laugh, amused by Fifi's antics rather than the topic of conversation. "Clopin is an attractive, intelligent man," she said, trying to explain away the reaction.

"My dear," Angelique said plainly as she sat on the edge of Belle's bed, "we are _hardly_ here to criticise your taste." She paused and pouted for a moment in thought as she looked about the room with a critical eye. "Unless you actually _like_ that gaudy Rococo thing that was no doubt put in here on Cogsworth's orders," she added with a gesture towards a rather unfortunate chair, the excessively gilded frame of which surrounded a _leopard skin_.

Belle giggled and shook her head. "It's a bit much," she allowed, "and uncomfortable."

Angelique nodded. "I will have it removed in the morning," she declared.

"You can put it on a wagon and take it away to _sell_," Belle offered. "It really isn't to my taste."

"A matter which we need to seriously discuss," Angelique said firmly. "I cannot decorate the castle to your taste if I do not _know_ your tastes."

"You will have my tomorrow afternoon," Belle promised.

"We already know that the man who wore a gold and purple tunic with a bright pink mask _is_ to your taste," Fifi interjected, getting the conversation back on track as to the reason for their being there.

"The _cowl_ was gold," Belle corrected. "The _tunic_ was blue and the same purple-pink as his mask, oh, though there was a bit of gold on the lower part of his tunic, and striped with purple on one leg of his hose..."

Angelique, Fifi _and_ Mrs Potts all giggled in their own unique ways a that.

"Oh my dear," Mrs Potts said as she shook her head fondly.

"And what was he wearing to dinner last night?" Angelique asked slyly.

"A white shirt with a brown vest and dark green dinner jacket, and black breeches," Belle answered at once. "Why?"

Angelique and Fifi both giggled again, though stifled themselves when Mrs Potts waved at them to hush.

"Mistress... oh, how can I put this delicately?" Mrs Potts mused quietly.

"Are you romantically interested in Monsieur Trouillefou, and if you aren't, _why_?" Fifi asked straight out, a playful smirk on her face.

Belle's face turned completely red, her eyes went wide and she seemed to be completely without words.

"Come now Fifi," Angelique scolded playfully. "That was _hardly_ delicate. Besides, we do not know Monsieur Trouillefou. For all _we_ know, he could be a vagrant and a vagabond. A scoundrel, a _libertine_, or a blackguard! Not at _all_ worthy of our Mistress. He could be a unreliable -!"

"Oh please stop," Belle begged, cutting Angelique off before she could say more. "Clopin isn't _any_ of those things. I mean, yes he's a gypsy, but that does not make him a vagrant or a vagabond. He tells stories to children and officiates many of the festivals of Paris."

"Hm," Angelique allowed non-committally with a pout. "Well, you know him better than we do," she said.

"Which brings us back to _my_ question," Fifi reminded.

"Which was?" Belle asked, hoping against hope that it might have changed.

Fifi rolled her eyes. No such luck. "Do you think you are now, or could potentially, _fall in love_ with Monsieur Trouillefou?" she asked.

Belle sighed and sank down onto her bed next to where Angelique sat. "Oui," she said softly.

Angelique immediately perked up. "Oh, to decorate the castle for a _wedding_!" she said, and drifted off into quiet raptures where she sat.

Mrs Potts chuckled. "It would certainly be something to see," she agreed. "But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves."

"Nonsense," Fifi objected. "Chip has already asked Monsieur Trouillefou how he feels about the Mistress, and -"

"He what?" Belle asked, eyes wide.

Fifi smirked. "Oui," she confirmed.

"Oh!" Belle moaned, mortified beyond reason, fell back onto her bed, and flung an arm over her eyes in a weak attempt to hide.

"I do not see what you are moaning for," Angelique said primly. "If you are in love with him, then why should you be upset that he is also in love with you?"

Belle sprang back upright.

Fifi and Mrs Potts laughed quietly, while Angelique peered at her mistress out of the corner of her eye, a pleased smirk on her face.

"Should we arrange a romantic dinner for you and your Monsieur for tomorrow night?" Fifi asked with childish glee once she had her giggles mostly under control.

"M-maybe not _tomorrow_ night," Belle hedged.

"Certainly," Angelique agreed. "The castle furniture is no longer _sentient_ to help with the fast arrangement of such an evening. It will take at least a _week_ to prepare properly. Now, it is late, and I am going to bed," she declared and rose from where she had been sitting on Belle's. "And don't forget, you have promised me tomorrow afternoon to discuss the castle décor."

"I'll be in the library," Belle promised.

Angelique nodded and left.

Fifi sighed. "Lumiere is waiting for me," she confided with a smile. "Bonne nuit, Mistress, and pleasant dreams."

"Good night Fifi," Belle returned with a wave as the maid also showed herself to the door.

Mrs Potts shifted over to sit beside Belle, and lay one hand on the young woman's knee while the other arm wrapped around her back.

"I know you're mother's gone now dear, but if there's anything you want to know, well, you know you can come to me with any questions about that sort of thing, alright love?" she asked gently.

"I do now," Belle answered with a weak smile. "Thank you Mrs Potts."

"Of course," the older woman answered kindly, then patted Belle's knee once more and ambled out of her Mistress' bedroom as well.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day, Belle managed to stick with the subjects that Cogsworth wanted to discuss from breakfast until lunch without being distracted by any of the books in the library where they were working. Lunch itself was taken in the dining room, but _unlike_ the day before, when Belle had dined alone for the midday meal (Clopin and Maurice had both been _too busy_ in the workshop to be drawn away), _this_ time, Clopin joined her.

After lunch, the couple went together to the library, chose a book, and settled down to read it together until Angelique arrived with a pile of books of her own.

They were catalogues, every page full of furniture and fixtures. All except for one book – a _date_ book.

"As well as deciding how you want the castle decorated, I want to know which holidays I can expect you to be at the castle for," Angelique informed her mistress.

"If I may?" Clopin asked with a gesture towards the date book.

"What?" Angelique asked primly, even as she held out the book – though she kept it firmly in hand and did not release it to him at once.

"I know the date of _every_ festival of Paris," Clopin stated.

"I'd hate to miss the Feast of Fools," Belle agreed with a nod, then smiled. "But could you imagine a party at the palace that continued from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day?" she suggested with wonder.

"You would get _very_ tired of dancing by that time," Angelique said primly, even as she finally relinquished the little date book to Clopin.

Clopin chuckled and shook his head as he accepted the book. "This year is the first in my life where the Paris Carnival has not followed the Feast of Fools," he commented as he opened the little book.

"Well, that's what happens when the minister of justice decides to try and burn the entire city to the ground hunting for _one_ gypsy," Belle replied archly.

Clopin chuckled. "She really did insist on annoying Frollo," he commented easily. "And to his face, rather than behind his back so that he cannot punish her."

"Who?" Angelique enquired curiously.

"Esmeralda," Belle and Clopin answered together.

"I cannot think _where_ I went wrong in raising that girl," Clopin bemoaned theatrically, sighing and holding his hand to his chest as though wounded.

"Don't be too harsh on yourself," Belle advised him as she stifled giggles. "You're only a few years older than her."

"This is true," he allowed with a nod, and turned back to the date book. "And there is plenty of time yet for the Carnival to get going. It _does_ normally continue until _Lent_ after all."

Belle laughed softly. "Perhaps it will be in full swing by the time we return to Paris," she suggested. "Perhaps Esmeralda's marriage to the captain will set it off!"

Clopin chuckled. "Perhaps," he agreed, and flipped through the pages of the date book to add a couple more festivals – one in March, one in April, and one in June – before he handed it back to Angelique.

"Hmph, well, none of these festivals coincide with any of the holidays that we here at the castle would _particularly_ want to host," she allowed. "If you celebrated Easter, Toussaint, and Noël here, perhaps?" she suggested.

Belle hummed in thought. "That should be alright," she said cautiously. "Hmm, but Quasimodo would be busy at Notre Dame on Noël, and I _do_ enjoy the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, so perhaps... if I alternated Noël and Jour de l'an?" she suggested.

"Oui," Angelique agreed with a decisive nod. "That would suit us here at the castle very well, as of course it must, for you are the Mistress."

Belle smiled with exasperated affection and huffed a silent sigh at Angelique, then shifted in her seat to take the first furnishings catalogue and settle it in her lap for perusal.

"Your company is now superfluous and distracting," Angelique informed Clopin. "Go, go! You can have nothing to say on the matters of how to properly furnish a castle," she said to him, and made shooing motions at him.

Clopin raised an eyebrow at the woman, but obediently rose from his seat beside Belle. Less obediently, he captured her hand in his as he stood.

Belle was _instantly_ distracted from the volume in her lap, and looked up at him.

Clopin silently held Belle's gaze as he softly pressed his closed mouth to the backs of her fingers, breathed in the scent of her skin as closely pressed to his nose as it was, and then, after a gentle squeeze, he released her hand and excused himself to join Maurice in his workshop.

"If you decide that you want the castle decked out in all the colours of that tunic he arrived in, I will _not_ be pleased," Angelique informed her mistress once the library door had closed behind the man.

"Only Clopin can pull off that particular shade of purple-pink," Belle answered seriously, and quickly turned back to the catalogue in her lap.

~oOo~

Cogsworth continued to claim Belle's mornings, and Angelique persisted in joining Belle in the library in the afternoons with her catalogues, but she _was_ able to spend time with Clopin at lunch and from then until Angelique arrived and shooed him out. The two of them also continued to cosy up together on the rug in front of the fire while Maurice relaxed on a chair not far away, and Belle and Clopin would read a book together.

Clopin's little puppet of himself even joined in, with his high squeaking voice, making commentary on the story or on the voices that the pair of them made for the characters in the story, which set Belle to laughing, and Maurice as well when he noticed the puppet.

It wasn't quite the same effect as when Clopin himself was dressed up in his bright colours so that he and the puppet looked more alike, but it was still very amusing.

As the week passed, things around the castle slowly changed. A chair here or there was changed, a vase vanished, a statue switched, a relic replaced, a mirror moved, and all the portraits were put away.

The floor of the ballroom was polished, windows washed, curtains aired. Instruments were tuned, a special menu was prepared, and a special dress was made ready for Belle when she returned to her room (after an afternoon discussing the aesthetic arrangement of the gardens with Angelique, Cogsworth, _and_ Chief Gardener Rosalind). Thankfully, it was _not_ the same dress she had danced in with the Beast that night. It was still beautiful, and still clearly _more_ than the _other_ nice dresses she'd been wearing around the castle up until that point, but... not _that_ dress. Which to her thinking was really a _good thing_. Clopin wasn't a prince, cursed or otherwise, and he wouldn't expect her to be a princess for him.

No, this dress was simple in its extravagance. It had a wine-coloured under-dress that was visible through the gape at the front of the golden over-skirt, and which flowed slightly over the top of the golden bodice to wrap around her shoulders in the same style as _that dress_ had. Her hair was done up the same way though, and the gloves were the same, and the shoes were the same, but the _dress_ was different.

And Clopin, in his dark purple jacket and wine-coloured waist-coat, was different.

The Beast, Belle recalled, had needed Lumiere to push him down the stairs – as much as he could at the time – while Belle waited for him where the diverging staircase met. Clopin, with his eyes fixed on her, had only _just_ beaten her to that point. He hadn't bowed and given her room to curtsey. He'd taken both of her hands in his – and both of them were wearing gloves, she noted with detached amusement – and he kissed them lightly. A definite kiss, rather than simply pressing his lips to the backs of her fingers as he had done before. There was a difference. Even through the gloves, she could _feel_ it.

Then Clopin had wrapped her arm around his and walked with her down the last few steps and escorted her to the dining room.

"Is _this_ why your father is having his evening meal privately tonight?" Clopin whispered to Belle as he pushed her chair in behind her at the table.

"Could be," she answered softly, a smile on her face as she watched him move slightly around the table and take his own seat.

Another difference. Clopin sat near to her, just to her right, rather than at the other end of the table, and they _talked_ as they ate. Animatedly. Even with the servants all doing their best to make it a romantic evening, Clopin still asked how her afternoon had gone (having asked about her morning when they'd shared lunch), and shared that her father's current project was nearly complete already – something sped along by his being able to request help from appropriately skilled members of the castle.

He still refused to tell her _what_ her father was building this time, and Maurice wasn't saying anything either. The servants wouldn't be drawn on the subject and Belle hadn't had the time or opportunity to venture out to the workshop herself to investigate. She _would_ find out though. She _would_.

When the dessert had been cleared away (fondant au chocolat, which Clopin had delighted in feeding _to her_, which in turn prompted her try doing the same for him, and she found a new appreciation for the act of feeding another person), Belle guided Clopin to the ballroom, where a string quartet awaited them in a room lit only by a chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a few candlesticks interspersed along the walls.

"So many times out there," Clopin sang to her softly as they danced, "I'd watch a happy pair of lovers walking in the night. They'd have a kind of _glow_ around them, I'd swear it looked like _heaven's_ light. I thought I'd never know that warm and loving glow, and locked my heart away up tight. How could a gypsy, poor and ageing, ever hope for heaven's light? Then suddenly an _angel_ smiled at me, and she kissed my cheek without a hint of spite. I dare to dream that she might hold regard for me, and as I hold her close tonight..."

Belle smiled up at him a moment before she stepped a little closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder as Clopin continued to guide their dancing.

"The single life is not so right," Clopin sang softly, his lilting voice catching high notes easily. "I want to live in heaven's light."

Belle blinked in shock and looked up at him. "Clopin?" she asked, hope shining in her eyes.

He smiled back and stopped dancing. "The single life is not so right," he repeated, and raised a hand to caress her cheek. "Would you grant me heaven's light?" he asked softly, sweetly, as he slowly – _slowly_ – bent his head down...

Belle closed the rest of the distance between them quickly, hands on Clopin's shoulders as her lips met his. And he was _warm_, and he _surrounded_ her with that warmth, and she _loved_ him, and _he_ loved _her_ as well, and -!

"Will you _marry me_, Belle?" Clopin asked, his words a breathy whisper against her lips when they parted.

"I will," she answered happily as she rested her head on his shoulder.

She felt his arms wrap around her waist and draw her even closer to him, felt his cheek rest on her head and his lips press to her temple.

"I love you," he told her softly.

Belle looked up at Clopin and raised a hand to cup his jaw. Gently she drew him down to kiss her again. "I love you too," she answered, just as softly, before she pressed her lips to his once more.

~oOo~

Maurice was delighted at breakfast the next morning to hear that Clopin had proposed, and that Belle had accepted him. He still claimed Clopin's help in his workshop after breakfast, and Belle was finally finished going over matters of the estate with Cogsworth by lunch. The happy couple danced together through the castle until they reached the library where Angelique was waiting. With catalogues for planning a wedding and rope to tie them to their chairs so that they could pay attention to the important details without getting caught up in each other.

Good news spread quickly, it seemed.

After a dinner with Maurice, the couple settled down on a rug in front of a fireplace, as they had done before, with Maurice watching them and drinking tea as the pair sat perhaps a little closer than they had before as they read together.

An echoing knock on the front door distracted them from their cosy occupations.

"What on earth?" Belle asked curiously.

"At this hour and in this season," Clopin said as he stood, and offered his hand to help her to her feet. "It is likely someone wishing for a night's shelter from the cold."

"It _is_ late," Maurice agreed, and stood as well. "You go see who is at the door. I'm going to turn in for the night."

"Goodnight Papa," Belle said, and hugged him gently.

"Bonne nuit," Clopin added with a nod of his head, then offered his arm to Belle and escorted her through the castle to the front door.

"Mrs Potts, will you put the kettle on and see about heating up some soup?" Belle asked the plump woman as they passed her in the hall. "Whoever is at the door must be cold through to their bones right now. And could you ask some of the girls to set up a guest room with a fire?" she added.

"Certainly Mistress," Mrs Potts agreed, and bustled off.

Clopin pulled open the heavy door when they reached it.

"Please, will the master or mistress grant an old woman shelter from the cold?" begged a hunched old woman wrapped in a green, tattered cloak. "I will give this rose in return for shelter," she added, and held out a tightly wound yellow rose, just in the early stages of blooming.

"I'm the mistress," Belle answered, "come in, please," she urged, and wrapped an arm around the old woman to help bring her inside.

Clopin closed the door behind them as soon as they were in, cutting off the cold wind.

"Thank you," the old woman said, and held out the rose again. "A rose for the mistress, in return for my night's shelter."

Bell lay her hands over the old woman's gently. "It is all you have," she said. "You must keep it. A rose at _this_ time of year is truly a treasure. A vase and water will be fetched for it, but I could not take it from you. Please, come. I've ordered a room made up for you already, as well as tea and hot soup to help warm you."

"Thank you," the old woman said. "You're very kind."

Clopin smiled at the way Belle blushed at the compliment. "She says nothing that is not true," he informed her fondly and kissed her cheek.

"Mistress," Mrs Potts called. "The room and supper for our guest is prepared."  
"Thank you Mrs Potts," Belle answered, and bid the old woman good night at the door of the prepared room.

Clopin escorted Belle to her own chambers after that, and kissed her hand in goodnight.

~oOo~

"Do you wish only to stay for the one night?" Clopin asked the old woman when she joined them for breakfast the next morning, escorted down by Chip. "It is not an easy thing, to travel in winter on foot."

Belle nodded in agreement. "Oui," she said. "If you wish, you are welcome to stay here as long as you like. I could even hire you to work in the garden come spring, if you wished. If you have been able to keep that rose until now, you must have a gift. I could not turn you out..."

Maurice chuckled. "Even if _you_ leave for Paris tomorrow morning," he quipped to his daughter.

The old woman joined in with Maurice's chuckles. "Oh, you are a _pair_ of good hearts," she said to Belle and Clopin with a smile, and with that smile the years melted away from her. Her back un-bent, her wrinkles smoothed out, and her limp grey hair became full and golden. "Accept this rose," she offered again, and the yellow rose she had offered the night before appeared, hovering, above the palm of her hand. "And a blessing of prosperity and happiness, wherever you may go."

"Thank you," Belle said softly as she reached out across the table and wrapped her fingers carefully about the stem.

"Oui, merci," Clopin added, stunned.

With a last smile, the woman vanished from where she had been sitting.

"Do you suppose she was a spirit?" Clopin asked cautiously.

"I suppose that she's the same one who placed the castle under an enchantment some years ago," Lumiere interjected as he rolled up the breakfast things. He'd gotten the trolley half-way from the kitchen when the old woman had undergone her spectacular transformation. "Breakfast is served."

"Thank you Lumiere," Belle answered, a little distracted still by the _glowing_ rose she held. "Um... a vase perhaps?" she requested tentatively.

Lumiere chuckled. "Of course Mistress," he agreed.

"So..." Maurice said, determined to draw conversation back to lighter things. "You two, leaving tomorrow for Paris again."

"Do I get to find out what you've been working on before I leave?" Belle asked with a teasing smile.

Maurice chuckled. "Your wedding gift," he answered his daughter happily.

Belle's eyes widened in surprise. "My -?!"

Maurice nodded.

"I had to get your father's approval before I could approach you, chérie," Clopin explained softly. "It was an effort made in positive thinking. You will like it, I promise."

Belle raised an eyebrow at Clopin, before she rolled her eyes and kissed his cheek. "Alright," she allowed. "But can I _see it_ today?" she asked.

Maurice chuckled. "You'd probably better," he said through his gentle laughter. "You're taking it back to Paris tomorrow."

~oOo~

The cart wasn't painted yet, just varnished against the weather on the outside. Still, it was a sight to behold when Maurice and Clopin pulled it out of the workshop to show her in the bright daylight of the snow-covered garden.

It was longer than Clopin's old cart, and the fold-out steps up to the door doubled as a seat for while it was hitched to a horse and there was driving to be done. A large set of shutters on one side would no doubt serve for Clopin to perform his puppet show through, and there was a chimney sticking out the top on the other side of the cart. There was a raised strip down the centre of the roof with narrow glazing, to let in light, and a small, glazed, bay window at the rear of the cart too, Belle noticed as she walked around it in wonder.

Clopin lowered the short ladder. "Would you like to see _inside_?" he enquired.

Belle was half-way up the steps and reaching for the door without any further prompting.

There was a small stove and compact kitchen area, a bookshelf beside the puppet theatre, cupboards, a fold-out table, a curtained off chamber pot, and...

"One bed?" Belle asked with a smile.

"I don't want you two _taking advantage_ of that detail until you're married," Maurice warned.

"Of course!" Clopin promised, hand over his heart and a shocked expression on his face. "I would _never_ -! Quasimodo would use me as a clapper for one of his bells if I -!"

Belle smiled and kissed his cheek. "I know," she told him softly. "And Papa does too."

"Yes," Maurice agreed with a slightly melancholy chuckle. "I do know."

Clopin relaxed, smiled, and proceeded to show Belle all the extra little hidden places that had been built into the wagon. Like the outside of the cart, however, the inside was fairly bare. The wood had been stained to the colour of rich, dark honey, and there were a few simple details carved around, but... the whole thing was just waiting for someone to move their belongings into it and make it a _home_.

Clopin came up behind Belle as she stood in the middle of the cart, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You want adventures in the great wide somewhere," he hummed in her ear.

"I want it more than I can tell," she agreed softly, a dreamy smile on her face, "but I have someone who's grand, and that someone understands..."

"You want so much more than can be planned," Clopin finished, and kissed the skin just behind her ear. "Best start moving belongings into the cart," he said softly, and guided her out and down the steps into the snow once more.

Most of the things they would need to be able to live in the new cart, Clopin had in his already, and they just needed to be moved from one to the other. There were a couple of things that could bear to be replaced because of wear, and other things (such as eating irons and flatware) got replaced because Clopin only had enough to service himself. The castle staff insisted upon new sheets, pillows, even a new mattress for the bed – and Clopin insisted that he would _keep_ his _old_ quilt regardless, which he had made and kept in repair himself with scraps of cloth that had come from other things as they wore through.

Clopin's puppets were moved in, as well as all his tools for making _more_ puppets, his colourful tunic that he entertained in it turned out he had two of, and both were hung in the new cart. He had two hats, which were hung by the door, along with his mask. His more ordinary tunics and hose were moved as well, as was a single outfit of finery from the castle.

Belle filled the bookshelf with books before she even _thought_ about dresses. Most of the ones she wore normally were back in the house in Paris after all. As most of Clopin's clothes folded away, Belle would have most of the cupboard to hang her few simple dresses in. For now though, she _did_ hang Clopin's favourite of her castle gowns in the cupboard, to be joined by her two other, _plainer_ dresses when they returned to Paris. Her third she would wear when they left the castle, as it was the dress she had arrived in.

Clopin also removed the gold Phoebus had given him from where he had hidden it and moved it to a similar hiding place in the new wagon. The bottle, he brought out to show Lumiere – after all, what did he really know about wine? The man was impressed by both the vineyard and the vintage, and advised Clopin to keep it for the wedding night.

The cart's small pantry was stocked full and a bale of hay was supplied for Renée, who'd had her coat brushed and her mane and tail braided before she was hitched to the cart the next morning.

~oOo~

Rather than dallying on the return trip to Paris, Belle and Clopin set out early the next morning with all haste. They wanted to see if they could reach Paris by the following noon – which would mean they would have to continue to travel through at least _some_ of the night, and not _stopping_ just so that they could eat. They'd eat on the move. They _definitely_ wouldn't be stopping for the night in the village.

They had to test the bed after all.

So it was a long day of travelling in the cold, but that was alright. They snuggled up together with a blanket around their shoulders and another one across their laps, and talked about which stories they'd read while at the castle Clopin could turn into puppet shows for the children.

When they stopped for the night, they were well past the village and the snow was all glowing in the moonlight. Clopin unhitched Renée and gave her a quick brush once he'd tied her up beside the bale of hay that had been supplied for her. Belle made them something hot to eat on the small stove inside the cart – which in turn warmed the whole cart and made it smell delicious.

Then Clopin took off his shoes, his gloves, his cowl, and hung up the hat he had worn all day, and Belle pulled off her over-dress and unlaced her corset so that she was only in her under-gown, toed off her shoes, and the two of them climbed up onto the bed together. Arms went around waists and feet tangled together and Clopin pulled the warm quilt over them both.

A chaste goodnight kiss was exchanged, and they snuggled in to sleep and dream.

Clopin woke up in the bed alone the next morning.  
"Belle?" he called sleepily. Then he noticed that the cart was already moving, and that bread, an apple, and a knife were set on a plate waiting for him. With a smile, he rolled out of bed and picked up the plate before he stumbled, bare-foot and with bed-head, out to where Belle was sat outside the door, the reigns in her hands.

"Good morning Love," Belle greeted with a smile.

Clopin chuckled and kissed her cheek as he sat down. "How early did you wake up?" he asked.

"It was light out," Belle answered with cheeky innocence.

Clopin chuckled and shook his head at her fondly. "Good morning," he said, and tenderly kissed her cheek. "How long until we see the gates of Paris do you think?"

"We'll see Notre Dame over the walls before we see the gates," Belle answered. "And not for an hour or two."

"Time enough to decide how to tell _your_ story to the children," Clopin teased as he began to slice into his apple. "It is truly a dramatic tale after all."

Belle was silent a moment, her mind cast back to her first stay in the castle. "Tale as old as time, true as it can be, barely even friends, then somebody bends – unexpectedly," she hummed softly, the song Mrs Potts had sung for them that last night before she'd been allowed to go to her father, just before she'd been given her freedom again. "Just a little change. Small to say the _least_. Both a little scared, neither one prepared... Beauty and the Beast..."

"Belle, until you said 'beast' there, I thought it was _our_ tale," Clopin said with a smirk. "And there are _some_ who would argue that I _am_ a beast," he added jokingly.

"Mrs Potts sang this song... _that_ night," Belle explained softly.

Clopin set his apple back down on his plate and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He didn't need to ask _what_ night. He knew already when exactly she was talking about. "Is there more?" he asked gently.

Belle nodded. "Ever just the same," she continued softly. "Ever a surprise. Ever as before, ever just as sure as the sun will rise. Tale as old as time, tune as old as song. Bitter sweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were _wrong_. Certain as the sun rising in the east. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme... Beauty and the Beast."

"Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme," Clopin echoed softly, still holding her close against his side. "All bathed in heaven's light," he finished, switching easily to the song he had sung to her while they had danced together in the ballroom. "You have _me_ now."

Belle smiled up at him. "Oui," she agreed as she snuggled a little closer. "I have you now."

~The End~


End file.
